Forget Me
by M.E.Pea
Summary: When Kyle slips on a patch of ice and loses his memory, Cartman uses this to his advantage. What does he want from Kyle? Love! Rated Teen for language and *some* sexual content
1. Slip Up

_Once again, I don't own South Park. It belongs to Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Please support the official release because it's awesome :)_

_In this story, Kyle loses his memory and Cartman takes advantage of this by trying to make Kyle his boyfriend! Fun, fun, fun! Originally, it was going to be a Style fanfic, where Kyle loses his memory and eventually remembers everyone but Stan, but writing it was boooooooooring! Enjoy :)_

Forget Me

Chapter 1: Slip Up

The only thing I could concentrate on was the pain in my head. That's all I focused on, to make sure that I wouldn't pass out again.

"Kyle? Kyle!" Who was that? Whoever they were, they weren't helping my headache go away.

"What?" I groaned. I opened my eyes and realized that I was lying on the sidewalk, flat on my back. When I looked around I saw three pairs of eyes staring down at me. The first pair belonged to some large dude. As soon as I opened my eyes, he got up and threw his hands in the air, saying "See? No reason to worry. Let's go."

The next boy was some blonde, staring at me as if he were trying to solve some puzzle. "I don't know Cartman," he said. "He's not doing anything. He's just staring at us."

The two of them started arguing, the Cartman guy saying I was fine because I had spoken. Had I? I didn't even remember. While they yelled at each other, I fixed my attention on the last guy. He looked worried. Insanely worried. Like he was going to cry or something. This was getting weird. I had to say something.

"Uh..." Everyone's heads snapped in my direction. The two arguing guys stopped, except for the Cartman guy, who muttered again how I was fine. I didn't really know what to say. "Uh..."

"See Cartman, he's definitely not okay! He can't even talk!"

"Shut up Kenny!"

"Who are you guys?" I finally asked. All this arguing was making my ears ring.

The worried guy got even more anxious. "Kyle," he said "it's us, your friends."

"I don't know any of you," I said, still wondering what had happened. I sat up and took a longer look at each face, but they didn't register at all.

The large guy started clapping slowly. "Oh, very nice Kyle," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Quit pretending and let's go. We're late, and I'm not going to let you Jew me out of this movie!"

"What?" I was really confused. "I'm not even Jewish."

"My God..." That stunned...Cartman for whatever reason. The worried guy helped me up, then grabbed me by the shoulders.

"You remember me though, right Kyle? It's me. Stan." I wanted to say yes, since he was probably worried out of his mind, but I had no idea who he was.

"Sorry, but no."

"Oh Christ Cartman, this is all your fault!" Stan turned toward the Cartman guy and started yelling at him. "If you hadn't made us rush to that fucking movie, Kyle would've never slipped and hit his head!"

"I told you guys we should have left earlier, but no one listened to me!"

"That's not the point! Kyle doesn't even remember us!"

"Wait, I hit my head?" I waited for Stan to answer, but he was still arguing with Cartman. Instead, Kenny? Yeah, Kenny, answered me.

"Yeah dude. We were running to go see a movie, and you slipped on a patch of black ice." He hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure you don't remember anything?"

"Well, I'm guessing my name is Kyle..." I thought hard. Was there anything basic that I didn't know? "Well, I still know how to speak... two plus two equals four..."

Kenny nodded his head eagerly. "Yeah, yeah, you're right! Good Kyle, what else?"

"The sky is blue..." It wasn't that day. Snow was gently falling onto my face. "Hey, what's my last name?"

"Oh God," Kenny moaned. "Oh God you guys." He looked back at Stan and Cartman, who had stopped arguing, and were now looking at him. "He can't remember his last name. He knows the sky is blue, but he can't remember his own name!" Kenny was starting to get panicky. He ran his hands through his hair and started muttering to himself like an insane person.

"What?" Stan asked. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know!" Kenny snapped. He took a deep breath and sat himself unsteadily on the ground. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"I guess we should take him home," Stan decided.

"Take him home!" Kenny asked. The way he said it made it seem as if Stan had suggested they kill me. "Take him home! One problem Stan; at his house, there's his mom, and where there's Mrs. Broflovski, there's-" Kenny's eyes darted in my direction. He gave the Stan guy a look to make sure they were on the same page. "A raving bitch," he continued, keeping his voice low. Wonderful. Apparently, my mom was a bitch.

"Kenny's right," Cartman agreed. He was looking around a lot, probably to make sure that no one was watching. "Let's just go abandon him in the woods or something. He'll never be able to find out where he lives if he can't remember where his house is. We'll just tell everyone that he ran off after school and none of us had seen him since.

The scary thing was, I think this guy was serious. I wasn't really liking these guys so much anymore.

"I'm sorry, did you say that you guys were my _friends_?" I would have run away, but I had no idea where to run to. I did back away though, and dodged their hands when they tried to grab me.

"Believe me Kyle, we're you're friends." Stan was trying hard to make me remember, but it was getting him nowhere. "Well, Cartman's not really your friend. He really just kind of hangs out with us, and we get to rip on him."

"Yeah!" Kenny agreed. "We don't like him, so you don't have to either. Actually, you guys hate each other."

"We do?" I don't know why I asked; it made perfect sense. When I asked, Cartman got this strange look in his eyes, and smiled. What was that about? I made a mental note about this new information to see if it would help me remember anything else. My... friends were still arguing over what to do, but I could still make decisions for myself. "Take me home," I demanded. I could see that they were going to protest, but I wasn't going to have it. This was about me, not them. "Take me home!" I repeated, more aggressively.

Regretfully, they started leading me down the street. I looked around for something familiar, but I didn't recognize anything. There was just a lot of snow, and houses that were really weird colors. We stopped in front of a two story green house. When we reached the door, everyone stopped moving.

"Well?" I asked. They all looked too scared to move.

"Ring the doorbell, Cartman," Stan muttered.

"Why the hell should I do it?"

"Because I said so. Do it!" Still, no one moved.

"Don't you have house keys or something?" Kenny asked me.

"How would he even know that?" Cartman shoved Kenny for being a dumbass. I reached into my pocket anyway, and found that I did. In fact, have a key.

"Here they are." I inserted the key into the keyhole, but Stan grabbed my wrist before I could unlock the door.

"Remember Kyle," he said. "Your mom's name is Sheila, your dad's name is Gerald, and you have a little brother named Ike. He's adopted.

"Adopted?" I asked. "From where?"

"Canada."

"My brother's Canadian? That's...nice."

"Kyle, focus! They are the Broflovskis, and so are you. You're Kyle Broflovski."

"...I still don't remember..."

"Damn it!" Both Cartman and Kenny joined Stan in an exasperated yell.

"Hey, it's not my fault. Blame Cartman! You guys said it was _his_ fault!" Cartman opened his mouth to say something, but I pushed open the front door before he could say anything. "Mom, I'm home!" I yelled. The guys started whispering for me to be quiet, but I didn't listen. "Mom?"

"Kyle Broflovski!" A voice shrieked from upstairs, and I was suddenly ready to run back outside. I almost did, but my-mother-came running down the stairs. She paused and looked at each of our faces. Judging by the embarrassed look on her face, she wasn't expecting me to return with anyone, but, I think that once she realized that the guys were the only ones with me, she returned to her fit of rage.

"How many time Kyle, have I told you not to _shout in my house_!" She was yelling louder than I had! "You go to your room this _instant_ young man! Which reminds me..." Her voice was calm for a moment. "Could you please explain to me..." Her body was starting to quake with anger. "...why you left your shirt on the floor this morning?" She wasn't shouting; she sounded more like a wild animal getting ready to rip my head off. "I had to wait all day, for you to come pick it up! It's just there on the ground, _lying_ there _Kyle_, waiting for you to pick it up, _Kyle_!"

"Shut up!" I heard my friends groan behind me, but I had to yell at her. She wouldn't stop bitching, and I was starting to get another headache. There was no way this woman was my mom.

"Kyle!" Some man with a beard came running into the room."

"Your dad," Kenny whispered. My dad was wearing a yarmulke. I guess I was Jewish.

"Yes-dad?"

"Why are you yelling at your mother? Don't you have any respect for her?" This was too much for me. I threw my hands in the air and walked out the door. "Kyle!" My dad yelled after me, but I paid no attention. If this was my family, then maybe I was adopted too.

"Kyle," I was ready to yell again, until I realized that it was only Stan calling me.

"What is it?" I sighed.

"You can't just leave! Your parents will kill you! Besides, you didn't tell them what happened."

"I don't care," I scoffed. "They'd probably get mad at me for slipping! Let's just go see the movie."

"Shouldn't we get you to the hospital? What if your brain's bleeding or something?" Stan put his hands on my shoulders and tried to look me in the eyes, probably to check to see if my pupils were dilated. I shrugged him off.

"I'm fine. Let's go."

"Finally." Cartman lumbered up the sidewalk ahead of me. Kenny and Stan stood next to me, wearing worried expressions. "If he doesn't want to go, we can't force him," Cartman told them matter-of-a-factly. I nodded in agreement and followed Cartman, and Stan and Kenny did the same.

"What movie are we seeing?" I had to say something to break the tense, awkward silence.

"Terrance and Phillip's Arses in Canada!" Cartman said it with such passion, you'd think he was talking about some discovery that would end all disease or something.

"Arses?" I asked.

"Yeah! In this one, Terrance and Phillip travel to the U.K., where they discover that the word 'ass' is spelled, and pronounced more like 'arse.' Then they go _back_ to Canada and put their new findings to use." I'm pretty sure he had gotten that off a promotional poster.

"That sounds kind of stupid," I said. "Can we see something else?"

"Kyle..." Stan acted as if he had just literally been stabbed in the back.

"We've been waiting three months for this movie to come out..." Kenny said in utter disbelief, "and you just forgot about how funny it's going to be?"

"It's not really my fault."

"Come on guys," Stan insisted. "We need to get Kyle to that movie _right now_!" We ran-cautiously-to the theater, but it was already too late by the time we got there. We had already missed a whole hour of the movie.

"Great!" Cartman groaned. "Well you guys, thanks a lot."

"Calm down." Kenny looked at movie times as they blinked on a giant screen.

"It's about time..." I muttered.

"What?" Stan looked at me questioningly. "It's about time what?"

"This movie theater just got an electric time slot sign, right? It took them long enough."

"Yeah Kyle, you're right." Stan smiled and looked up at the sign. "We just got it last year."

"Kenny, is that you?" I heard a girl's voice come up from behind us. Sure enough, a curly blond stood behind us. There were three guys behind her, and she had her arms hooked with a dark haired girl who stood next to her.

"Hey Bebe, Wendy, Clyde, Craig, Token." Kenny pointed to each person as he said their names. It kind of freaked them out, and they backed away from him.

"Uh, hi Kenny." The blonde girl stepped closer to her dark haired friend Wendy, as if to protect herself. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I lost my memory, and Kenny was just trying to help me remember you guys." There was no reason for me to keep it from anyone, especially if they could help me.

"Okay, I'll bite." The blonde girl-Bebe, unhooked arms with...Wendy and skipped behind me. "You remember _me_, don't you Kyle?" She grabbed my shoulders and winked at me, giving me a flirty sort of smile. "There's no way you could forget me." She rubbed her hands up and down my arms and slowly closed the space between us to whisper in my ear. "No way," she repeated.

"Sorry, but I really don't." I paid no attention to her.

Bebe cocked her head, rolled her eyes, shut them tightly, and gave me a smile.

"Alright then," she said. "Come with me and I'll _help_ you remember."

"That's enough," Cartman sneered. "You and Kyle have no _real_ history Bebe, so stop whoring yourself out so that he'll remember your face."

"It's not up to you _Cartman_. Let Kyle decide what he wants." Bebe looked at me suggestively. "What'll it be Kyle?"

"No thanks," I said, almost apologetically. Bebe's face fell into a deep, angry frown, and with that, she and the rest of her group moved on.

We bought some food from a fast food place next door, and made sure to eat it very slowly. We needed something to preoccupy us while we waited for the next movie to start. Finally, it was ten minutes until the movie, so we decided it was time to go in.

"Let's go you guys," Cartman was already holding a handful of tickets in his hands. He hurriedly ran into the theater. I waited in the doorway for Kenny and Stan to follow him, but they stood behind, talking.

"That's weird," I heard Kenny say. "Cartman usually makes Kyle buy his own ticket."

Stan shrugged. "He's in a hurry. He probably wasn't paying attention or something." Kenny shrugged. They both caught up with me, and we joined Cartman in the theater.

_To be continued...obviously. That would be a horrible story ending! _


	2. Playing Nice

_Ah! This story became WAY more popular than my first one in a MUCH shorter amount of time! I'm kind of freaking out now. I'm afraid the rest of my story won't excite you like my first chapter did. To avoid this, please review so that I know what you like, and especially what you don't like :D_

Chapter 2: Playing Nice 

I was surprisingly entertained by the movie. It was much, much funnier than I had expected it to be. When Stan told me that they also had a TV show that we used to watch as kids, I nearly died, in a good way. I asked him if he had the series on DVD, and if I could borrow them. He did, and I could. Awesome! I really wanted to catch up with everything that I had missed, or I guess forgotten would be a better word.

The rest of the day, the guys just showed me around. We visited Stark's Pond, my old elementary school, my old middle school, a basketball court, and well, that was pretty much it. I could tell that there was very little to do in this town.

Eventually, I had to go home to my horrible parents. I said bye to the guys and quietly entered my house.

"Kyle!" It was completely dark downstairs, but I could tell that the voice whispering to me belonged to neither of my parents.

"Ike?" I guessed.

"What are you doing? It's ten-thirty on a Sunday! Mom's going to fucking murder you!" I wanted to scold him for cursing, but I honestly had no idea how old he was. He sounded like someone I could trust, so I decided to ask him some basic questions I'd forgotten to ask my friends.

"Sorry about that...hey Ike?" I groped around in the dark to find out where he was, but I failed miserably.

"What?"

"Uh, how old are you?"

"...I'm twelve, Kyle."

"So I'm your older brother."

"Of course Kyle!" I think I was starting to freak him out. "You're seventeen."

"Oh."

"Are you feeling okay, Kyle?"

"Not really. I hit my head earlier today and I'm having trouble remembering a few things."

"How much is a few?"

"Everything. Well, I remember basic and academic things, but that's pretty much it so far."

"So, you don't remember me?"

"Yeah." There was a really long pause after that.

"Well, hurry up and go to bed. I'll help you out tomorrow." There was some movement upstairs, and Ike ran to the second floor. "Get up here!" he whispered harshly.

He showed me my room, and told me that I had to wake up at five thirty the next morning. He also told me that my mom would be checking up on me in the next five minutes, and to try as hard as I could to fall asleep, because she could tell when I was faking. I thanked him and turned to go to bed, but he stopped me with a full-on hug that lasted longer than I was comfortable with. It was awkward, since I didn't really know this kid, but I dismissed the thought of prying him off of me.

"What was that for?"

"In case you die in your sleep." He was being serious. "Either you're fine, or you're having a lucid interval, and you'll be dead in a few hours." Was that normal vocabulary for a twelve year old? He was kind of making me wish that I had taken Stan's advice and gone to the hospital. I thanked Ike and promised him that I would be alive in the morning, although I was unsure of it myself. We both went our separate ways and headed off to bed.

* * *

><p>I woke up five minutes late. Just five minutes. But to my mom, it was more like I'd slept in through the entire creation of the universe or something. She came to my door, banging on it, and hollering my name, telling me that I was going to be late. I sprung out of bed and got ready as fast as I could. It was six o' clock when I was finally ready.<p>

I was surprised to see my entire family sitting around the kitchen table, getting ready for breakfast. What was even more shocking was when my mom looked up at me and...smiled.

"Good morning Bubby! Have some breakfast." Bubby? I thought my name was Kyle.

"Mom, you know that nick name embarrasses Kyle," Ike said, shifting his eyes towards me. Oh. That made sense.

"Don't be silly, Ike, Kyle loves that name. Don't you Kyle?" My mom motioned for me to come towards the table.

"Uh, sure."

My dad jabbed me in the arm and smiled. "It's okay if you don't want your mom calling you that anymore, Kyle. You're a grown man now," he said, glancing up momentarily from his paper to look at me.

"It's fine dad, I guess." My mom gave me an approving nod and passed me some eggs.

The rest of breakfast consisted of Ike jogging my memory with conversation filled with lines like, "remember the time when-" and, "like that time Kyle-" My parents didn't seem to notice it though.

Stan, Kenny, and Cartman were already waiting for me when I left for school. We headed there mostly in silence, except for Stan's ramblings as he prepared me for the day.

"Here's your schedule, along with your room numbers." He pushed some papers towards me. "There's also a list of people you need to know."

"Thanks...dude." I folded the papers and jammed them in my pocket just as we arrived at school. The bell for class rang almost immediately after, and everyone ran inside.

"See you later!" Kenny called. Stan and Cartman were already inside. I quickly fished out one of the lists, the wrong list, and watched the rest of them fall out of my pocket and tumble onto the wet asphalt.

"Kyle!" I looked up and saw Cartman peeking through the doorway. "Hurry up. I'll show you where your class is."

I was a bit skeptical. If this guy was really my enemy, then I needed to think twice before trusting him. "Why?"

"Because," Cartman half growled, half sighed, "we have the same class first period, and I don't want the teacher getting a sore vagina just because you were late."

"Oh."

I followed him quietly down the hallway, watching people pass by and quickly shuffle into their classrooms. We traveled up a single flight of stairs, and into a fairly small room. "Sit here." Cartman pointed a thick finger towards a desk in the third row, and then took a seat in the one next to it. Why did I sit next to him if we were enemies? Everyone else seemed to notice too. They stared at the two of us seated next to each other until Cartman caught them and gave them dirty looks.

"Good morning everyone." A tall brunette woman sauntered into the room. She looked pretty young, about thirty-five, but she didn't look very friendly. There was no smile on her face as she scanned the room. "I'll be needing your home work assignments from Friday." Homework? No one had told me about any homework. I searched my brain for any memory of doing any over the weekend. Knowing me, which was still a work in progress, I guessed that I always finished my homework on Fridays.

"Cartman," I whispered. I did my homework, right? Cartman looked me over for a second and nodded.

"Look in your homework folder," Cartman whispered. "It's filed under the English tab, and titled 'Analysis of Early English Literature.'"

"Eric Cartman!" Eric? I guess Cartman would be a weird first name. The teacher stood at the front of the room, tapping her foot. "Why does it seem like I'm always having problems with you?" There was an eerie silence as she waited for an answer, boring holes straight through Cartman's eyes to the back of his skull with her own cold eyes. "It's too late to be silent now Mr. Cartman. Please turn in your homework and then go visit your principal."

Cartman did as he was told and silently walked out the door. The rest of us passed up our work, and classed resumed as what I guess would be normal.

* * *

><p>The first part of the school day was amazing. I had studied all my school subjects so much before my fall, that I remembered everything, scholastic-wise, anyway. Then came lunch. I didn't think that I was usually a shy person, but I was that day. I stood outside the cafeteria doors, waiting for someone who looked familiar. Kenny was the first to show up.<p>

"Hey Kyle, what are you doing out here?"

"I didn't see anyone I knew."

"Didn't you look over that list Stan gave you?" I'd actually forgotten about it.

"No. But since you're here, you can help me, right?"

"Yeah, sure." We both entered the lunch line. I remembered that my mom had packed a lunch for me. I told Kenny, but he said that I should still buy a lunch anyway..

"Why?"

"Well, usually you buy your lunch and you give your brought lunch to me." That made no sense. Why spend money when I could just eat a perfectly made whatever-it-was from home? I guess Kenny could see my growing suspicion, because he gave me a nervous smile and told me that it didn't matter, and told me to enjoy my lunch. I waited for him to buy something, but instead he just showed me the table where we usually sat at lunch. Soon after, Bebe and her group joined us, and then Stan and Cartman showed up. Stan sat on one side of me, and Cartman on the other, probably so he could sit next to Bebe, but she didn't seem to want him there.

Wendy traded places with...Craig so that she could sit next to Stan, and gave Stan a kiss as she sat herself next to him. Stan and Wendy, dating? Yes! I remembered now; Stan and Wendy would break up constantly, and it would always become our job to cheer up Stan whenever that happened. According to my memory, I still didn't know that much about Wendy, but I was sure that it was just because I'd never gotten to know her, or that I just didn't want to.

"So Kyle," Bebe reached past Cartman and tried to grab my hand, but I dodged her subtly. "Kyle," she continued, trying to ignore my rejection. "You wanna hang out later or something?" There was that smile again.

"He's not interested," Cartman snapped, answering for me.

"Again, _Cartman_, let Kyle answer!" Bebe gazed at me softly. "Well Kyle?"

"Sorry. I have stuff to do..."

"I didn't even tell you a specific date yet!"

"Look Bebe," Stan cut in much to my relief, but also to Bebe, and also Cartman's scorn.

"Right now our main focus is to help Kyle remember things. He doesn't have time to hang out with you."

"So it's true then?" Wendy leaned in closer to me to get a better look. "You really lost your memory?" I nodded.

Wendy looked over at Cartman, reached across Stan and me, and hit Cartman on the shoulder as hard as she could. "What was that for?" Cartman didn't seem hurt at all, but he was shocked by the supposedly undeserved punch.

"Because knowing you, _Eric Cartman_, I'm sure this is all your fault!"

"Why you guys call him Cartman?" The table was silent as I waited for my answer.

"Cause he's an asshole," Kenny finally answered. "And assholes don't deserve to be called by their first name."

"An asshole?" I looked Cartman over. Sure, he had been rude with that "Jew" comment he'd made when I first "met" him, and he did seem a bit intense at times, but there was no way he was an asshole, right? "I don't think he's _that_ bad." Even Cartman looked shocked to hear that.

"Trust me, he is," Stan muttered under his breath, ignoring Cartman's death stare.

"Well so far, I don't really find him to be an asshole, so I think for now I'll call him Eric." I gave-Eric-a smile and resumed eating my lunch as everyone stared at me in awe. Even Eric was shocked. Eventually, conversation started up again, but I could tell everyone was still sort of uncomfortable. Instead of joining in on their talking, I observed the room to see if there would be anything around that I could remember, but I didn't see anything that could help. No one looked familiar. I sighed, felling sad while everyone was talking about a party that I was sure I had been to, but couldn't remember. I saw Kenny across the table looking tired and hungry.

I scanned the room one more time, and that time I did see someone significant. A boy was sitting at a table with people who seemed to be ignoring him more than anything else. He was fairly small for someone in my age group. His light blonde hair rested in a giant clump on the top of his head, sticking out in all directions. He saw me looking at him and smiled right away. This guy seemed really nice. Who did I know who was like that?

"Butters!" I yelled it so loudly, and so unexpectedly that I startled everyone at my table. "It's Buttes!" I told them. Finally, I remembered someone who was worth talking to. When Butters heard his name called, he leapt up from his seat and headed for our table. He took the seat across from me.

"Hey Kyle!" he exclaimed. "I heard you hit your head and couldn't remember nothin' anymore. Is that true?"

"I did," I told him. "But for some reason, I remembered you almost as soon as I saw you!" Sure, Butters had been annoying in the past, but he was a nice guy, and I needed good memories to hang onto before I went insane. We talked the rest of the lunch period about nothing in particular. It didn't help me remember anything, but it put a smile on my face.

The second part of school went by pretty slowly. Kenny and I both had theater together, which was pretty much a class where you stood around and did nothing for an hour. Stan and I had AP Biology together, which was a pretty fun class. I was also taking French, another class that Eric and I shared. He didn't say anything to me that time, to keep himself from getting in trouble again. However, when class ended, he stopped me in the hallway to talk.

"Hey Kyle?"

"Yeah?"

He hesitated. "Do you wanna come over?" he asked. "To study, I mean."

Stan and Kenny would have my head if I said yes, but why not? "Uh, sure. Let me just call my mom and ask her first." I took my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed her number; something I had remembered, strangely. I guess I usually had to call her a lot. She did worry _way too much_, so she probably liked to be updated more than a normal person should be.

My mom answered after two rings. "Kyle? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering if I could go over to Eric's house to study."

"Eric? Who's Eric? I don't know an Eric!"

"Eric Cartman, Mom."

"Him? Alright Kyle, go ahead if you want to, but you need to be back home by six-thirty!" My mom hung up before I could agree.

"I can go," I told Eric. He seemed surprised that I was actually willing to.

"Okay." I followed Eric out the school doors, and in the direction of his house. The trip to Eric's house had been pretty quiet for the most part. All he did was ask me what I wanted to study for, and made a few complaints about how deep the snow was getting.

"Mom?" Eric called through his house, but no one answered. "She must be at work."

"What does she do?" I asked.

"Everyone." I don't think I was supposed to hear that. "Do you want something to eat?"

"No thanks." Silence surrounded us again. We were running out of things to talk about already.

"Why don't we start with English?" Eric led me to his kitchen, and we sat down at his kitchen table and took out our books. We flipped through our notes, only talking to ask the occasional question. We took a break before transitioning to pre-cal.

"Hey Eric?"

"Yeah?" Eric looked up momentarily from his book to make sure I knew he was paying attention.

"Is it true what everyone says about you? That you're..." I couldn't think of a nicer word. "An ass?"

"What?" Eric laughed sarcastically. "No. They're just jealous 'cause I'm awesome. We were the best of friends Kyle, but they don't want you to know that."

"We were?"

"Well, yeah...I mean, we fought most of the time, but we were still friends!" I wondered how much he was exaggerating the level of our "friendship." Eric looked sadly down at his paper, realizing that his plan to convince me of our closeness had failed. "Kyle?"

"Yeah?"

Eric looked down at his paper, trying to avoid my eyes as they searched for his. "Do you remember _anything_ about me?" He began chewing his pencil eraser. "Anything at all?"

"No, why?" Eric looked up briefly and then back at his paper. He tried once more to keep his eyes locked with mine, and succeeded.

"When you start remembering me...just know that I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry for what?"

"Stuff I did when we were younger. I'm really, really sorry."

I gave Eric an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, I'm sure that whatever you did wasn't that bad."

Eric smiled sadly. "You say that now..."

We had finished studying by four-thirty, and had our homework done by six. I decided to start up a conversation to get to know Eric better.

"So, what does your dad do?"

"He's dead."

"Oh. What happened?"

"He was murdered."

"Sorry about that." Maybe family wasn't a good topic to talk about. "So, why do we hate each other?"

"Just stuff," Eric answered simply, shrugging his shoulders. "I always said and did things that pissed you off. I'm really not a nice guy," he apologized.

"I'm sure you are! All you have to do is be nice to everyone, and they might actually forgive you for what you did.

"I don't wanna be friends with those assholes. Forget that. Anyway, Terrance and Phillip's probably starting, and I'm sure you want to watch it."

"Yeah!" I jumped out of my seat and ran to the living room. Eric turned on the TV, but he didn't join me.

"I'm going to bed," he said flatly. "Terrance and Phillip is on channel two."

"You're going to bed this early?"

"Yeah." It seemed like he didn't want to talk to me. I thought we had been getting along, but maybe I was wrong.

I watched an episode of Terrance and Phillip that went on until six-thirty. Another episode was up next, but I had promised my mom that I'd be back already, and I was already too late. The only problem was, I didn't know how to get home from Eric's house. What was I supposed to do? I didn't want to wake up Eric. He seemed pretty out of it when I saw him go upstairs. I could've called Ike for directions, but what if my mom picked up and yelled at me? It wasn't worth it. I took my phone out for the second time that day. None of the lights were on downstairs other than a small light from the kitchen, and the blinking TV screen. The brightness of my phone screen made me squint. I blindly sent my mom a text, telling her that I was spending the night at Eric's. I really hoped she would understand, but I wasn't so sure.

The rest of the night, I watched a Terrance and Phillip marathon nonstop. I think I fell asleep around ten-thirty.

I woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon. I lay on the couch, only moving my eyes to look around the room. I was in Eric's house. I had to remind myself that a few times. A pile of clothes rested on the coffee table. The TV was still on, the news being broadcasted in its bland, uninteresting way. When I stood up the room spun. I stumbled into the kitchen and squinted at Eric, who was half asleep, standing over the stove.

"Good morning," I half whispered. Eric grunted in response. There was a plate of bacon and pancakes on the kitchen table. I suddenly realized just how hungry I was. "Can I have some?" I asked Eric's back. He pointed over his shoulder towards the plate on the table. "Thanks." I hesitated. I didn't want to annoy him, but I had to ask, "Hey Eric? Is this kosher?" Eric pointed again, this time to a shopping bag on the kitchen counter. The name on the bag didn't look familiar, but underneath the logo read in fine print "kosher food store." I looked at the clock on the stove. It was five forty-seven. I didn't remember seeing any kosher food stores anywhere in South Park. Did he go out of town to get kosher food for me? And that early in the day too? "You really did that for me?" Eric nodded. "Thanks," I said again. "A lot."

_What did you think? Let me know! By the way, it's not pork bacon. It's turkey bacon! _


	3. From the Bushes

_Heeey! I'm back! Sorry for the delay. I had finals to pass and camps to go to, and summer reading to do (and TV to watch!) Haha, anyway, let's continue with the story before you really start forgetting what happened._

Chapter 3: From the Bushes 

"I'm telling you guys, he really did!" I sat with Stan and Kenny in the cafeteria, trying to get it through their heads that Eric had in fact, been nice to me, and that he had also made me breakfast as a kind gesture, but they weren't buying it.

"He probably just pretended to buy kosher food," Kenny decided while snatching a tater tot off of Stan's tray, "and actually made you eat pork or something."

"I don't think so. Why would he have woken up so early to make bacon on the stove instead of just microwaving it? And he also made pancakes, so he wasn't just trying to get me to eat meat."

"Pancakes?" Stan asked through a mouth full of half a burger. Kenny took the other half and ate it quickly.

"Yeah. And they weren't the type you put in the toaster either."

"You _ate_ something that Cartman made? Did you watch him while he made it?" Kenny stared at me, wide-eyed.

"No, why?"

"No reason." Kenny looked behind me, and then at Stan, who was looking in the same direction that he had been. They were both staring at Eric, who came to the table and sat next to me, then quietly ate his lunch while glaring evilly at Kenny and Stan. They gave him an equally acrid look.

"What?" Eric growled.

"What did you do to Kyle?" Stan demanded .

"Yeah!" exclaimed Kenny, reaching for the extra milk carton that Stan had bought.

"I didn't do anything," Eric said through gritted teeth.

"What happened?" Wendy appeared behind Kenny, sat next to Stan, and looked at Eric. Bebe sat next to her and did the same.

"Cartman made Kyle breakfast," Stan reported.

"Did he eat it?" Stan nodded. Wendy scowled and slapped Stan on the arm. "Stan! You're his friend! You should have warned him about this!"

"Wait!" Bebe stopped everyone. "He made you breakfast? Where were you this morning?"

"At his house," I answered. For some reason, that made Bebe laugh.

"So, are you two fucking now?"

"What? No!" Did things always have to be connected to sex with her? I shyly pushed myself away from Eric a bit. "I just fell asleep on his couch because I didn't know how to get home from his house!" Eric was being pretty quiet. I thought that maybe he'd want to back me up over something like that.

"Why were you at his house?" I hadn't seen Clyde standing there. He asked the question as he squeezed between Wendy and Bebe.

"We were just...studying!" Bebe snickered at my answer.

Eric slammed his tray on the table, startling and silencing everyone. He stared angrily in Bebe's direction. "Shut the fuck up Bebe," he snapped. "Screw you guys, I didn't do anything."

"Cartman, wait!" Eric looked back at Kenny, who had called him.

"What?"

"Can I have your lunch?" Eric glowered and walked away. "I'll take that as a yes!" Was this guy _always_ hungry? More importantly, what was with Eric all of a sudden? I decided that it could wait until later.

Bebe opened her mouth to say something, probably to pry into my business involving Eric. I quickly spoke before she could start another awkward conversation. "Sooo, tell me about yourselves. We haven't really talked about your lives and stuff."

"I'll go first!" Wendy piped. "I'm Wendy, Stan's girlfriend." She squeezed Stan's hand and looked at him lovingly, and let her head snap back in my direction with such speed intensity that I was afraid she was going to get whiplash. "I've been on honor roll since sixth grade-"

"Thanks Wendy, but I already remember you." The last thing I wanted to do was listen to her brag about herself. She squealed with joy when I told her the "good news," leapt from her seat and gave me a great, big overwhelmingly tight hug before going to tell her friends who were sitting at another table. Stan went next. He explained how he, Eric, Kenny and I had been hanging out together ever since preschool. He talked about the many adventures we'd been on, most of them probably made up, because they seemed too unreal to believe. He told me about his parents, Randy and Sharon, and his sister Shelly.

"I remember your dad," I said, laughing. "He's pretty hilarious."

"I wish," Stan groaned. "He's just stupid."

"What do you want me to know about you, Kenny?" I asked. He just shrugged. Stan elbowed him in the ribs, but it did no good.

"Kenny, Kyle needs your help to remember," he whispered harshly. Kenny just ate his food. "Fine," Stan said, "I'll tell him about you." Kenny stopped mid-chew and gazed at Stan, horrified.

"No you won't." Kenny kept his eyes on his food, chewing slowly so that he wouldn't have to talk.

"Whatever Kenny, you're being an ass." No one said anything about Kenny, but I got to know everyone else a little better.

I decided to talk to Eric after school. He kept avoiding me all day, and I really wanted to know why. I saw him walking home, and caught up to him.

"Eric!" I called.

He jumped slightly, and turned in my direction. When he saw that it was me, he glared at me darkly. "_What_, Kyle?" That look gave me the chills. Where had I seen it before? Eric's expression softened when he realized how malicious he looked. "Sorry," he murmured. "What is it?"

"I was wondering..." I was still a bit shaken from that stare. "I was wondering what happened at lunch today. You got really mad you know."

"So what?"

"Did I say something to upset you?"

"...Kind of."

"What did I say?" I honestly had no idea what I could've done wrong. I was nice to him this whole time, and he was mad at me for something unintentional?

"Well, it's more of what you did..." He wasn't being clear enough. "You remember when Bebe asked if we were...?"

"Oh." My face reddened. "Yeah, but I said we weren't, remember?"

"Exactly. You said no, and then you moved away from me Kyle."

"I-I'm sorry," I stammered. I wasn't sure if he was mad at me because he wanted what Bebe had said to be true, or simply because I had moved away from him. "Sorry, did you say that it was bad that I said we weren't?

"Yeah." Eric looked around for a moment, and then turned to look at me again. "How do you feel about me Kyle?" he asked, stepping a little too close for friendship distance.

"You're a really good friend, I encouraged. I wanted to step back, but something about the look Eric was giving me was mesmerizing, like it was a expression I'd never seen him wear before. He leaned in closer, and I tried harder and harder to repel him. It seemed like he was trying to-kiss me? I wanted to do something, but my body wouldn't respond. Eric grabbed me by the backpack straps, and pulled me in closer for the first kiss that I could ever remember. I stopped trying to escape, figuring that I might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Eric's lips were surprisingly warm. All he did was press his against mine; no tongue involved, thank God. I guess he expected me to kiss him back, so when I didn't. he let go of me immediately, letting me fall back down to earth.

"That was- nice..." I said apologetically. Honestly, I had no interest in anyone, whether it was because of memory loss, or just because. Unfortunately for Eric, he seemed interested in me.

"Nice?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it was...great!"

I wasn't fooling him of course. Eric sighed, frustrated, and decided that there was nothing he could do. "Bye Kyle." Eric walked up the street and didn't look back. He seemed to be hanging his head, but I couldn't really tell. Obviously he was upset, but I thought it would be better to just leave him alone. Besides, I needed to get home. I started walking in the direction of my house, but everything went dark.

"Hey Kyle!" Butters moved his hands from my face and jumped in front of me. "How are you?"

"I'm good, I guess." I tried to look as happy as I could, but this thing with Eric was already beginning to bug me. "Hey Butters? Why do you call Eric by his first name when no one else does?"

"Hmm..." Butters scrunched up his face and scratched his head. "Well, he's my friend, that's why!"

"Why's he your friend?"

Butters thought even harder until his face started to look like a raisin. "Well," he started, " I guess it's because he's just so lovely. His mom's always workin', his dad's dead, and no one at school likes him...especially not you." That made my eyebrows rise, although it wasn't surprising since all my other friends hated him too. "It's true!" Butters replied, reading the uncertain look on my face. "He was really happy when you fell, Kyle." Butter's voice took a more serious tone. "He was happy that you forgot everything, and he really wants to make things right again.

Make things right? What he had done just before seemed to have messed things up. "I don't think so," I sighed. "He just-did something to me and I didn't really respond well to it."

"Oh, I know!" Butters exclaimed. "I saw you from the bushes!" That…was kind of frightening. "Only because Eric asked me to talk to you in case anything went wrong, but he was sure he wouldn't need me."

"Really?:

"Yeah!" Butters stood on his toes and lowered his eyebrows. "'Butters ,' he tells me, 'you go hide in those bushes and don't you come out until I tell ya!' But I asked him why, and he told me everything! I asked him if he wanted me to help him stop cryin' if you said you didn't like him." Butters got into his "Eric pose" once more. "Then he said, 'ha, ha, ha!'" Butters' laugh was deep and sinister sounding, "'I won't need you Butters! Kyle likes me now, so there's no way he could say no know!'" I don't know if it was because it was Butters imitating him, but he made Eric seem really, _really_ optimistic.

"Well, tell him I'm sorry." Butters nodded.

"Alright, I'll tell him, but I don't know what he'll do. Eric's really stubborn about getting things he wants."

* * *

><p>Lunch was especially awkward that Wednesday afternoon. Eric kept trying harder and harder to win me over: he walked me to class and even offered to carry my books, which I found pretty cliché, but I wasn't complaining. He was actually making an effort to be nice to everyone, a nice change, but it didn't make me feel any different about him. I had forgotten my lunch at home, so he bought lunch for me. When we sat with Kenny and Stan at lunch Eric greeted them with a halfhearted smile and asked them how they were doing, but was only answered with scowls. After five minutes of attempted, but failed conversation, Eric left the table to go talk to Butters. I was sure that if he hadn't he would've gone off on those two, not that I blamed him. They were being really rude that day.<p>

"What's you guy's problem?" I snapped. Both Stan and Kenny shrugged and continued to eat from their tray. Even though they weren't my first choice, I had to talk to the guys about that had happened. "Listen...please don't freak out or anything, but Eric...kissed me yesterday."

"WHAT?" Kenny yelled. Stan stared at me blankly, and then at Eric, and I took a look at him too. I could tell by how red his face was that he knew exactly what we were talking about. Butters gave him a few pats on the shoulder, and prattled on cheerfully.

"You're joking, right Kyle?" Stan sounded both disgusted and frightened, When I shook my head, all color left his face.

"I wanted to ask you something," I said. "How do you know if you're attracted to someone? I don't think my brain remembers how to let me know."

"You don't think you like Cartman, do you?" Kenny kept looking back and forth between me and Eric.

"That's the problem- I don't know. Before I fell, did I mention anything about liking anybody?

"You said you kind of liked Wendy's friend Red." Stan pointed to a group of girls sitting a few tables down on our left side, particularly a girl with dark red hair who was staring- at me. When she saw us looking at her, she whispered to her friends, stood up, and started walking towards us. The other girls were cheering excitedly as she inched closer and closer. Kenny and Stan left the tables, just as Red sat down across from me.

"Hi Kyle," she said sweetly. She grabbed my hands and gave me a huge smile. She was actually pretty stunning. He hair went down her shoulders in thick crimson curls that surrounded her porcelain, heart-shaped face. Her hands were nice and soft as she squeezed mine.

"Hi..." Was this what liking someone was like? Thinking that they looked nice? Maybe I should've taken a better look at Eric. I turned away from Red for a second to inspect him from across the room. He was staring at Red, looking sort of sad.

"Kyle?" Red tried to get my attention by tapping on my arm.

"Huh?"

"Um, I was wondering if you would maybe want to see a movie with me after school. I know you're smart, so it shouldn't set you back on homework."

"Uh, sure."

"Cool!" Red jumped happily out of her seat. "Meet me outside after school and we'll take off. I'm buying!" She ran back to her table and started talking to her awaiting friends. Soon after, high-pitched squeals came radiating from the mass of females. Stan and Kenny rejoined me shortly after.

"So, I have a date with Red," I announced. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Just enjoy it," Stan advised. "Red knows about the accident, so she shouldn't be impatient with you."

When school ended, I left for the movies with Red. We went to see a romantic movie, of course. I wanted to see Arses in Canada again, but Red said it wasn't "date appropriate" or whatever. The strangest part of the night was when Red kissed me. It was different from Eric's: less forceful, and her lips were a bit softer. For some reason, she wasn't as good as Eric, but I kissed her back anyway.

Later that night, I dropped Red off at her house. She gave me directions back to my place and tried to give me a kiss goodnight, but I refused. I wasn't sure about myself, and the last thing I wanted to do was to lead her on. I liked Eric's kiss better than hers. Did that mean that I liked Eric? The point was that I didn't know, and I didn't want Red's feelings to get hurt.

_Oye, this chapter is short, but I can't help it. Guess why...can't guess? Well, it's because I like to write my stories on paper first, in notebooks, and well, I lost it. Don't kill me! It doesn't matter anyway. I'm switching up the storyline a bit, so that book is pretty much useless :P_


	4. Competition

_Okay, in this chapter, things really pick up! But anyway, I'm going to have to make my chapters longer! I've read some stories where it took almost 30 minutes to read one page. Don't worry, I might not go that far, but I think they need to be longer than they are now before I end up with 13 chapters again. Ugh, a daunting task lies ahead of me: I _won't_ be writing on paper anymore...it's weird. Wish me luck dudes :P _

Chapter 4: Competition

I thought it would be a good idea to tell Red how I felt about her, or I guess how I felt about Eric...if I did feel anything- but of course, I didn't know how I felt about either of them, so there was no way that I could express any of it in words. As expected, Stan and Kenny were waiting for me outside the next morning, without Eric. While they walked with me to school, they kept asking me about my night with Red.

"What movie did you see?" Stan asked, elbowing me in the arm and giving me an encouraging smile. I wished that he'd stop trying so hard to get me to like Red so that I could just tell him that I wasn't really all that into her. Kenny wasn't any better either. He jammed a bunch of condoms in my hand before I could even say hi.

"Well, I wanted to see Arses in Canada again..." Kenny and Stan shook their heads knowingly. They both knew that there was no way I was going to be able to see it. "But Red was paying, and she decided to see some foreign romance film. I think it was called Cette Romance de Merde or something.

"What was it about?" Kenny asked.

"I it was about some girl in France who lost all her inheritance money and-" Kenny gave me a light slap on the face. "Kenny, what the hell?"

"You actually _paid attention_ to the movie? Weren't you watching it with Red?"

"...Yes." According to Kenny, no couple really goes to the movies to _watch _movies. He told me that it was the opportune moment for me to take advantage of Red's hidden "lust" for me. It made no sense to me. In my opinion, there was no reason to go to the movies if you weren't going to watch it. I pretended to take his advice and nodded at appropriate times to make it seem like I was actually listening. I didn't really want to go out with Red again anyway, so there was no use taking pointers.

Eric pretty much ignored me throughout the first half of the school day. I figured it was better that way, since I was supposed to be "seeing" Red, and he would just cause more confusion. Red sat with us at lunch. Well, she sat with Wendy and Bebe at the other end of the table, most likely telling them about our date. I guessed as much, since they kept looking back at me and giggling. Once again, Kenny was mooching off of Stan's tray. They were both arguing over the last french-fry when Eric walked up to the table. He asked to talk to me in the hallway. I looked back at Kenny and Stan, who were still arguing, too busy to notice their enemy towering above them. The girls rolled their eyes and went back to their conversation when they saw him coming, and they didn't look back up. No one would care if I went, right? I followed Eric into the hallway, which was surprisingly deserted.

"Kyle, you can't date Red." Eric stated bluntly. Well, at least he knew how to get a point across. "She's all wrong for you. I bet you didn't even have fun on your date yesterday."

"How'd you know about that?"

"She's been talking about it to everyone. She thinks that you two had an 'amazing time' Kyle, but she's wrong, isn't she? You know you don't like her, don't you?"

"I might Eric, you never know." Lies.

"Did you kiss her?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You wasted your time with her, Kyle. I'm better in _every_ way. I can kiss better, I know you a lot better, and I'm way hotter than her!"

"Is this a competition now? Are you just trying to win me over so you can beat Red?"

"_No_, Kyle! I want to beat Red so that I can have you to myself! She doesn't deserve you, and once you realize that, you'll leave her and date me!" I was glad that no one was in the hallway. Eric's behavior was borderline embarrassing, and I didn't want anyone to hear him.

"Eric, calm down! You're acting like an idiot." There was a vast difference between asking and harassing, and he was definitely harassing me. "If you're going to be like this, I don't want you near me anymore!"

"Sorry." Eric sulked and held the door open for me to pass through to the cafeteria. I tried to enter the door, but he stopped me before I could. "I'll _prove _that I'm a better date than Red. Come over to my house after school at five." He gave me a clever wink and sauntered back to his table. Kenny and Stan watched, suspicious, as we made our way back to our seats. Red also looked sort of worried. When I sat down next to her, she immediately grabbed my hand and glared at Eric.

"What did he want?" Kenny leaned forward, past Stan to keep a guarded eye on Eric. I just lied and told Kenny that he said he wasn't interested in me anymore. "That's just like Cartman," Kenny half-laughed, half-scowled. "We told you Kyle, he was just using you...sorry." Red patted me softly on the shoulder, while looking a little confused, since this was the first she'd heard of Eric's infatuation with me.

"It's okay, Kyle," she said, "come over to my house after school. I'll make you feel better." Shit. I hadn't promised Eric that I would go over to his house, but he did ask first...

"I can't go," I apologized. "My mom wants me to...clean...things."

"Come on Kyle, it's Friday!" Stan looked at me in disbelief. "Your mom lets you off on Fridays." Thanks Stan.

"I would go, but...she doesn't know we're...together, and she might not react well."

"This is great then!" Red chirped. "We can go tell your parents together! I'm sure they'll understand, Kyle." Why not? She seemed like a nice enough girl, and I guess I could learn to like her, so there was no harm in-

"Actually, Kyle has plans." Eric came up from behind Red, pushed her slightly, and squeezed himself into her seat. She tried to push him off, but failed. She huffed and sat on the edge of the seat, glaring at Eric from the corner of her eye. Kenny was the first to speak up.

"You have no idea what you're talking about Cartman. Leave Kyle alone. He told us what you said, so you can stop the whole act. At first, I thought Eric was going to blow my cover, but that would also ruin his plans if anyone found out his true intentions. He made up a quick-and very clever-lie about how my mom had grounded me for yelling at her the day I'd fallen, and that the only reason I'd been able to go out with Red, and over to his house was because I'd promised to double-up on chores that weekend. "How would you know that?" Kenny snapped.

"I told him," I added quickly. "When we were studying at his house, I was just...bitching about my mom, and her...rules and I just told Eric about the agreements I had to make with her." Kenny and Stan snickered. "What?"

"You said you were bitching about your mom," Kenny laughed. "Only girls bitch, Kyle." I heard Wendy gasp from the far side of the table.

"Kenny, that's _really _offensive, and sexist! Apologize!" Kenny refused, prompting Wendy to demand Stan to force an apology out of his apathetic friend. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about my alleged plans. Everyone but Red. She didn't seem to be buying the story, or at least, she didn't want to. She left the seat she was battling with Eric for, and sat herself next to me in my seat.

"I have a solution Kyle," she announced excitedly. I'll go to your house, and help out with your chores. That way, you'll get done faster, your parents will meet me, _and_ they'll see that I'm a very reliable girlfriend!" Whoa, girlfriend? We'd been out on one date, and she was already calling me her girlfriend and asking me to introduce her to my parents! Perfect! Now I could find an honest way out of this situation.

"Listen Red, I'd love to let you meet my parents, but we only went on one date, and it was just yesterday. Can we at least wait until next week?" Red's face fell. I thought she was going to cry, but she recomposed herself and gave me a small smile.

"Sure Kyle," she replied sadly. "I tend to get ahead of myself at times. Well do it next week for sure." I felt horrible. Not because I had denied her access to my parents, but because I had told her that there would be a next week. I wasn't planning on having her hang around me that long, but it seemed like that was how it'd have to be. Once Wendy had gotten an apology out of Kenny, things mostly went back to normal. Eric silently asked me if I was still coming with a nod of his head. I agreed with a subtle nod, watching to make sure that no one else saw me. Kenny was already pissed by having to apologize to Wendy, and having Eric near him for so long didn't make it any better.

"Fuck off Cartman," he spat, pretty unexpectedly. "Since you're no longer trying to brainwash Kyle anymore, no one wants you here. Kyle, you can go back to calling that former-fatass Cartman, like he deserves." Eric rolled his eyes and rose from Red's seat, rejoining Butters at his new regular table. I thought Red would move back to her now free seat, but I think that my rejection made her a bit clingy, so she remained in my seat, pressing slightly on my body. This was beginning to be a problem.

* * *

><p>After school, I called my mom to ask her if I could go over to Eric's again that night.<p>

"That Cartman boy again?" She inquired. "Alright, but you had better come home this time young man!" She then proceeded to asking me if we'd been doing drugs that night we'd been studying, and informing me that there was no way I could get a drug habit past her, and then threatening me with boot camp. I assured her that there was absolutely no drug use involved, and that I was just going over for another study session. Honestly, I had no idea what Eric's plans were, but I assumed it was the same thing as before. He asked me to come over at five, so I had a couple of hours to kill. I decided to find out what Kenny and Stan where doing.

"We were about to go over to Kenny's house to play N64," Stan reported. N64? That came out years ago... "But I thought you had chores to do."

"My mom's not really that intense about it. I just made it seem more urgent so that Red wouldn't get the wrong message. I'm not ready for her."

"Christ Kyle, you are such a girl!" Kenny cried. "If I could get a girl to get as attached to me in as short of a time as you did, I wouldn't be complaining. But anyway, Kyle, you can't come to my house." Kenny's face hardened so quickly that I thought he was joking. I laughed nervously as he stared seriously at me. "I'm not joking Kyle."

"Come on Kenny!" Stan entreated. "He was going to find out eventually, so why not now?"

"Let him find out when his memory comes back!" Kenny snapped. "I don't want him going, Stan."

"Well, at this point, it's not up to you Kenny!" Stan snapped back. "Either you let him come, or I'm not sharing my lunch with you anymore!" Kenny blushed slightly at this revelation. So he had no choice. Stan had to share his lunch with him, or he'd never have lunch again. Kenny scowled and darkly allowed me to come to his house. As we walked from the school, Kenny remained silent, glowering and muttering under his breath. As we got closer to his house, the more our surroundings changed. We entered a part of town that was much less appealing than the rest of the town. Trash was strewn across the ground, making it a sickening brown color. Rusted cars sat, trapped in snow banks, barely even poking out of the snow. The farther we got into the mess, the angrier Kenny seemed to get. I thought we were passing through, and understood why Kenny would be embarrassed, but I was surprised to find that he lived in probably the worst part of all this.

Most of the windows in his house had been broken open, and his front yard was filled with useless junk-old bicycles, papers, soggy books. Kenny had to kick the front door a few times to get it open. I cried out in surprise when I saw two dogs humping on the living room floor. Kenny yelled at them to get out, but they paid no attention until he started swatting at them with one of his shoes. They dashed out the door, nearly knocking us over. According to Kenny, those weren't his dogs. Stan and I sat on his couch while we waited for Kenny to get the game started.

"Hey Stan," I whispered to keep Kenny from hearing, "isn't the N64 pretty old? I could bring one of my game systems over next time."

Stan shook his head. "That's not a good idea, Kyle. Last time you did that, Kenny's sister stole it and sold it for birth control." Oh. Never mind then. We waited patiently for Kenny to hook up the N64. Once he did, I tried to make conversation, but Kenny wouldn't allow talking. We played in silence until about four thirty. Stan walked me back to my house to make sure I could find my way from Kenny's, though I was sure I wasn't going to be invited again anytime soon. I asked Stan to tell Kenny that I didn't care if he was poor, just in case he thought I did.

"He knows that Kyle," Stan assured. "He's just embarrassed. Don't worry, he'll get over it eventually." I pretended to search my pockets for my keys while Stan walked off. Once he was out of sight, I made my way to Eric's house. When I did finally get there, I began to have second thoughts. Maybe Kenny and Stan were right. Maybe Eric _was_ trying to mess with me. What if he was trying to ambush me or something? I wasn't sure why I suspected him of that. Deciding that I was just being unnecessarily paranoid, I rang Eric's doorbell, and waited patiently for him to come to the door. The door swung open, revealing Eric, anxious as ever. Something was different about him...

"Did you get a haircut?" I asked, smiling and shifting from side to side to get a better look at Eric's new look.

"Maybe I did," Eric muttered. "So what?"

"Nothing. It looks nice." His hair was nearly covering his eyes before, but now it was much shorter, sticking out in all directions, like when he was younger-

A wave of dread passed over me as I realized what had just happened. Sure, it was a small memory, but it was the beginning of more small memories, that would eventually lead to me fully remembering Eric. What if he really was as bad as everyone said? I didn't want to go back to hating him.

"You ready?" Eric nudged me on the shoulder to get my attention.

"What?"

"For the movie Kyle, you just said you wanted to go." I did?

"Uh, sure, let's go." Eric instructed me to leave my backpack at his house. We started walking towards the theatre.

"I heard you wanted to watch AIC with Red on your date, but she wouldn't let you," Eric stated casually. "Figures," he sneered.

"AIC?"

"Arses in Canada," Eric reported.

"Oh."

"Well, not to worry, Kyle. You're not _just _seeing Arses in Canada; you're seeing it with _me_!

"Good to know," I snickered

"You have to admit, it does make for a better date," Eric bragged. I had to agree. I was already having more fun with him than when I was with Red. While walking to the movies, I decided to get a better look at Eric. He was chattering on about Mega Man while I pretended to listen. Red was definitely better looking than Eric. Eric's sun-damaged skin contrasted greatly with Red's pastel-colored skin. Her green eyes were deep and sparkled, while his were dark, and seemed to have no depth at all. Loose skin on Eric's arms hinted that he had lost a pretty large amount of weight at one point, while Red looked like she had never been anywhere near overweight in her entire life. The thing was though, that I found Eric immensely more attractive that Red. Why? I thought you were attracted to people who you thought were beautiful.

We finally made it to the movie, and sat together- in the back of the theater- the same thing that Red had me do when I went with her. I got about halfway through the movie, but after a while, I couldn't pay attention to the movie at all. I was too focused on Eric, sitting next to me in the dark. He was laughing at something on the screen- probably another fart. I wanted to laugh too, but I couldn't tear my eyes off of him. I decided instead to follow Kenny's advice he'd given me earlier: to take advantage of Eric's hidden-lust-for me, if he actually had any. I lifted up the arm of my theater seat and hesitantly placed my hand on Eric's upper thigh. He stopped laughing and looked down at my nervous hand and smiled. I heard him chuckle softly as he studied my face as best as he could in the darkness. He pulled me closer to him using one arm. I prepared to be kissed, or at least something like that, but instead I was squeezed as Eric burst into laughter at the movie. I scowled internally and tried my hardest to pay attention to the rest of the movie.

When the movie finally, _finally_ finished, Eric and I started to head back to his house. As we were walking, I tried to move forward, but Eric stopped me with one of his large hands.

"What?" I asked. Within the next moment, Eric had me pinned against the wall of the theater, kissing me feverishly along my neck and collarbone. Stunned, I couldn't do anything but prop myself on the wall and moan in elation. When Eric moved to my lips, I grabbed him by the waist and squeezed tightly, trying not to lose it then and there. My mom had asked me to wear my hat that day since it was especially cold. Eric tossed it off with a quick fling of his hands, and it fell to the ground, forgotten by the both of us. This allowed Eric to play with my hair; caressing each individual curl, grabbing handfuls to bring me closer to him. I let out another long moan, much louder this time, to my embarrassment. I pulled myself away from Eric, too ashamed of my sudden outburst to continue. Once we'd stopped, I began to notice that my ears were burning. My mom had reminded me of my sensitive ears. It had only been about a minute, and they were already numb with cold. Eric could tell. He picked my hat off from on the ground, wiped a bit of dirt off of it, and placed it back on my head.

"Sorry about that," he apologized, tugging the flaps over my ears. I responded with another deep kiss, letting waves of repine undulate through me. I was almost certain that nothing could ruin this.

"Kyle Broflovski!" A female voice shrieked from behind me.

_To be continued! Haha, all this mushy gushy stuff is totally not me! Waves of repine undulating... tell me if you like this whole love-fest, or if you'd like it toned down a bit :P (don't take MY feelings into consideration- this is about YOU :P) See ya later!_


	5. Snitch

_You guys have me so scared! Apparently, I've been doing the characters very well, according to some of you awesome people- which has been completely on accident, and it scares me! I think I might've slipped up a bit...My computer has no sound, and my dad turned off the cable, so I can't watch any SP for reference :( I guess I'll have to plan to get my help from somewhere else. Planning makes my head hurt...planning and italicized font ^-^ _

Chapter Five: Snitch

Wendy stood, staring at us with wide eyes. "Kyle, _what_ are you doing?"

"God-damn it, Wendy!" Eric yelled, realizing that our "moment" had in fact, been ruined. "Why don't you mind your own business?"

"This _is_ my business, Cartman. Kyle's supposed to be with _Red_, not you!" Red. I'd forgotten about her.

"You're just getting into our business because you're here alone," Eric sneered. "Why don't you go make some friends instead of bitching at us, _Wendy_?"

Wendy gave us both an arrogant smile. "I'm not here by myself. Bebe's getting snacks." Eric's face fell, which seemed to make Wendy even happier. "In case you've forgotten, Kyle, Bebe kind of has a problem with keeping her mouth shut." In more ways than one, I was sure. "I could tell her what happened, and then she might tell Red, and Red might tell your mom..." Wendy trailed off maliciously and looked over her shoulder to seek out her friend's location. "We wouldn't want _that_ to happen, now would we Kyle?" I shook my head. "You know what _I_ want Kyle? I want Red to be happy."

"So do I," I agreed. "So I'll just tell her the truth the next time I see her."

"Kyle, you can't do that to her! Listen- I won't tell anyone what happened as long as you promise that you'll take Red on one more date. I swear Kyle, you like her! Another date will help you realize that."

Eric laughed behind me. "There's no way he'll do it," he told Wendy, with a cocky grin on his face. I wasn't so sure if I could agree. I had no idea how Red would feel if she found out, and it made me cringe to think of what my mom would do to me if she somehow found out what I'd actually been doing behind her back.

"I'll think about it," I said. I could feel Eric stiffen. So he wasn't up for more rivalry with Red? Too bad then.

Wendy returned the cocky grin to Eric. "You have until Monday, Kyle." Without another word, Wendy walked off to join Bebe.

"What a bitch," Eric muttered. He looked at me and smiled. "You aren't really going to do it, right?"

"I might," I admitted. Eric scowled at my honesty. "It's only to get Wendy off my back!" I yelled, beginning to get defensive. This wasn't Eric's problem- it was mine. "Look Eric, I don't _like_ Red- at all! I'm definitely sure that you're the one I like."

"Then what's the problem, Kyle? If you like _me_, what's the problem?"

I hated to admit it, but there was an even bigger reason as to why I agreed to go on the date. "The problem is... I don't know how _long_ I'll like you." Eric caught on. His facial expression changed from anger to worry. "It's not like I've been remembering much," I assured him, "but I have started remembering some things about you, and it's only a matter of time before..." Eric nodded. "I mean, I guess I need something to fall back on."

"I forgot about that. Do what you have to do Kyle, but just know I'm not okay with it."

We walked back to my house in awkward silence. Even though I knew Eric had a good reason to be upset with me, I was still angry. I never even promised him I'd stop seeing Red or anything. Just as soon as we got to my front door, much to my relief, I realized that I had left my backpack at Eric's house. When I told him, he was of course, less than ecstatic about me going back over to his place. When we arrived, he wouldn't let me inside. He went in and returned with my backpack moments later.

"Here you go," he said pushing it lightly towards me.

"Stop being such a child, Eric," I snapped. He scowled bitterly as I turned to leave. I sighed heavily, exasperated by the situation. I knew there was no way I could just leave while I was mad at him, even if it was mild anger. If I woke up the next morning hating him again, it would be comforting to know that the last time we had spent liking each other actually involved us-liking each other. "Eric!" I tiredly called as he began closing his front door. He glared at me from the doorway.

"What?"

"You're just giving up? I guess you're a lot less competitive than I thought you were," I said, smirking.

Eric's eyebrows furrowed as he realized that his dominance had just been questioned. "Get inside," he demanded roughly, obviously out to prove himself once again. I agreeably walked into his house, eager to find out what he would do to keep me away from Red. I started to take my backpack off from around my shoulders. Eric swatted it off with one quick movement of his hands. He eyed my hat for a moment, and repeated the action. "God, I hate that thing," I heard him whisper. "It hides your hair too well, Kyle. You're hair's too fucking good to be hidden." With every word, he inched his body closer to mine, keeping our eyes locked in an intense stare. For some reason, I knew exactly what to do, but my body wouldn't respond. My heart pounded loudly, almost painfully, as Eric's body pressed itself against my own. Finally, my brain caught up with me. I flung myself onto Eric and immediately began sucking his face shamelessly. I came up for air and took a moment to inspect Eric's face for a reaction. He looked both pleased and surprised. I jolted forward again, this time letting out a hungry growl that surprised even me, before attaching myself to him again.

I suddenly felt overexerted. Even though Eric was holding me tightly, I could feel the room spinning. I had to pry myself off of him to breathe evenly. It didn't help. Unexpected waves of nausea crashed over me from out of nowhere. I bolted up the stairs to the nearest bathroom I could find, and crashed through the door, but I never made it to the toilet. Sitting on the toilet was with her legs spread wide open, was a women. Crouching in front of her were- one, two,-three men. Each time one of them thrust themselves forward, the woman would throw her head back and scream with pleasure. Eric's mom. I didn't even have to try and remember. I calmly threw up in the sink, without them noticing, and backed away slowly, closing the door behind me. Eric watched me as I descended down the stairs, looking concerned, especially when he saw my face, which I'm sure looked pretty shocked. "You're mom's upstairs..." The blood drained from his face. This must have been a usual occurrence for him to realize what had happened so quickly.

"Shit," he muttered quietly. "Sorry, Kyle, but you need to go home." I understood. I wouldn't want anyone over either if I knew my mom was having sex in our bathroom. Eric offered to take me home, but I said I was fine. It would be too awkward walking home with him after what I'd just witnessed. He told me he needed to handle something really quickly, but he'd be back to see me out. While he ran up the stairs, I searched the room for my hat. Even though Eric hated it, I knew my mom would throw a fit if I lost it.

I heard a door upstairs swing open. Ms. Cartman gasped in surprise, but she was cut off by Eric's shouting before she could ask any questions. My name was mentioned a few times, coupled with even more yelling, until finally, there was silence. I heard feet thundering down the stairs, and turned to see the three men run downstairs and out the door, still half dressed. Eric and his mom followed behind them. Ms. Cartman smiled at me, but stopped when Eric nudged her and whispered something to her. She looked at me again, this time with a look of uninterest and apathy. A horn honked outside, and without another word, she rushed out the door without getting her coat or even her shoes. We watched her climb into a truck, joining the other men. They sped off before she could even close the door.

"What was that look she gave me just now?" I asked.

"She thought that you wanted to join them," Eric explained, cringing. I didn't say anything. I was too afraid I'd make his obvious embarrassment worse by trying, and most likely failing, to say something comforting. I was starting to feel sick again, so I quickly found my hat and backpack, and told Eric I'd see him later.

* * *

><p>The next morning I woke up with a splitting headache. I was so stressed out about Eric and Red that I couldn't think straight, and it didn't help that my mom was yelling at me to wake up so we could go to Temple. As mine throbbed, she ran into my room, yanked me out of bed and pushed me into the bathroom and demanded that I brush my teeth.<p>

This was going to be a _long_ day.

* * *

><p>After that ordeal, all I wanted to do was relax. I changed into some comfortable clothes and collapsed onto my bed, ready to fall back asleep. The doorbell rang. I decided to ignore it- probably just some delivery or something. "Kyle!" I heard my mom call from downstairs. I groaned loudly into my pillow. There was no way I could avoid this, was there? I slunk out of bed and trudged downstairs, swearing to hold a permanent grudge over whomever was at the door. Wendy and Red walked through the doorway, Wendy smiling manipulatively at me while hooking arms with Red, who gave my mother and I a sweet smile.<p>

"Mrs. Broflovski is it okay if we talk to Kyle for a second?" Wendy asked with curt sweetness.

"Sure Wendy," My mom answered just as nicely. "Keep your door open, Kyle." The girls followed me upstairs and into my room. They sat themselves on my bed, uninvited, leaving me to sit at my desk. We stared at each other in awkwardly until Wendy finally started a conversation.

"Don't worry, Kyle, we're not here to bother you. Red just wanted to make a few plans for your date." I hadn't even said yes yet, and she was already making plans. In a way, Wendy had gone behind my back, since it was supposed to be my decision whether or not Red and I went out again, but I kept my mouth shut to keep Wendy from revealing anything.

"Alright," I agreed, "What did you have in mind, Red?"

"Well," Red began, "That new ice skating rink just opened outside of town. Why don't we go there?"

"I don't know how to ice skate." Or did I? I couldn't remember, obviously.

"Okay, how about the movies again?" I explained that there were no good movies showing that I hadn't already seen. "We could go out for dinner." Did she know of any places with kosher food? She didn't, so we couldn't. I felt bad shooting her down, but I was making it difficult on purpose. Mostly because Wendy had rushed me into this, and because I just didn't feel like dealing with people at the time. "I know! We'll go to Stark's Pond. I don't know what there is to do there, but I'll figure something out," Red said suggestively. Wendy stood up abruptly and excused herself so she could use the restroom, leaving me alone with Red.

"Well, usually when I go to Stark's Pond, I-" Red leapt from my bed, and landed just inches away from my face.

"Come on, Kyle," she breathed. "I've only gotten to kiss you once, and that's not fair. How many times has Cartman kissed you, hm?"

"You know?" That bitch Wendy! I shouldn't have trusted her.

"Of course! Wendy wouldn't just let me follow around some guy who wasn't interested in me."

"So then, you're going to leave me alone?"

"I can't Kyle. It would be so much easier if I wasn't competing with Cartman for you. If I can't get you to like him over _me_, I've failed as a human being."

I rolled my eyes. "What if I say I don't want to go out with you?"

"Then I'll have to tell your mom. I'm just being honest." Red said, feigning innocence. "I'm not doing this for myself, Kyle. I really do like you, and I want you to like me to." Her voice softened. "I don't mean to be controlling, but I don't know what else I can do to keep from losing you. I've liked you _way_ longer than you even know, and I'm not ready to give up just yet." I was stuck. On one hand, Red _and_ Wendy were blackmailing me, but on the other hand, Red really wanted a chance. So I agreed to the date, partially because of the blackmail, and partially because it didn't seem fair since it seemed as if Red had liked me before my injury, unlike Eric. But mostly because of the blackmail.

"Thanks Kyle!" Red wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a hug, all while sitting in my lap-I didn't even realize she had gotten that close- but she didn't get up. She stared at me intently and smiled, then leaned forward and kissed me tenderly. I sat back and tried to enjoy her kisses, but I couldn't. They were much less passionate, less forceful, less sincere than Eric's. The truth definitely was that I did _not_ like her. Either way, I had no choice- this date was going to happen. I just hoped Eric wouldn't overreact.

_Ugh, I know, I know. I've been gone over a month, and _this_ is the most I've come up with? I'm sorry! Between school starting up again, AP classes, drawing comics, taking care of my dog, and the _worst_-and first- case of writer's block I've ever had (causing me to get frustrated T^T),I was able to produce this hopefully not too epic fail, hehe. Enough with the self-loathing! It doesn't matter what I think, since I'm way too anxious about everything- It's about you. Sorry it's so short, but if I tried to make it any longer, you wouldn't see me for a year!_


	6. Acceptance

_I hope you guys weren't disappointed that Cartman and Kyle weren't found out by Red or Mrs. Broflovski. I'm trying the best I can, but feel free to tell me if my best isn't good enough :D _

Chapter 6: Acceptance

Red and I decided that the date couldn't wait until the next weekend, so we planned to get together the next day, Sunday. I woke up that morning with yet another headache, and scowled at the sun for rising without my permission. I lazily glanced at the clock on my nightstand. Ten o' clock. I had ten hours until Red showed up, but it still felt like that would be too soon. Instead of getting up, I watched my fan spin on the ceiling for so long, my eyelids grew heavy again, and I was ready to fall back asleep. I heard my door open, and thinking it was my mom ready to scold me for still being in bed at ten, I shot upwards into a sitting position so she would think I was wide awake. Instead, Ike timidly walked through my doorway. Oh. He stood uncomfortably by the doorway, eyeing me as if I were some sort of foreign object. Confused, I motioned for him to sit at my desk chair.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. Ike hesitated for a moment. Whatever was bothering him obviously involved me, so I had to figure out what it was.

"I heard you and Red talking yesterday," Ike paused momentarily. "Have you really been- doing things with Cartman?" Damn it. This wouldn't have happened if my mom trusted me enough to keep my door closed while two girls were in my room. Well actually that did sound pretty- I told myself to focus. I was pretty sure I'd gotten so lost in my thoughts that I'd started daydreaming. "Well Kyle?"

"Yes Ike, I have. You're not going to tell mom, are you?"

"No! I'm not a snitch, Kyle. Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Because you're my brother! Why would you want to know about something like that?"

"_Because_ I'm your brother, Kyle. In case you've forgotten, and you probably have, we tell each other almost everything."

"Everything?"

"Not like that, Kyle. To be honest, this is the first time I've ever heard of you getting any kind of action." Ike laughed, smirking. "Usually you just bitch about Wendy and Stan's breakup, or Kenny making out with yet another girl at lunch, or Cartman. Especially Cartman."

"What kind of things do I say about him?"

"The biggest complaint, of course, is the Jew comments...hm. I think one time, you got a cold sore, and he told everyone you got herpes from Bebe...I don't know, just usual Cartman stuff. I'm surprised you've put up with him for so long."

"He hasn't really done anything bad so far. He gets on my nerves every now and then, but it's no big deal."

"Speaking of annoying," Ike began, "what's this I hear about you and Red going out tonight? Don't you think your boyfriend will be upset?" Ike asked, partially joking.

"He's not my boyfriend, Ike...I think. Didn't you hear Red? If I don't go out with her tonight, she's going to tell Mom, and then Mom will- I don't know what she'll do. That's what scares me..."

"I don't trust her," Ike warned. "What if you still don't like her after this date, and she doesn't accept it? She'll just blackmail you into more dates. You should just risk it with Mom and see what happens." Too much of a risk. Even if she didn't react badly, the rest of the school would find out. I wasn't ashamed of any of my preferences at all. It all just came down to my memory. If the whole school found out, I'd be overwhelmed by the amount of people who would try to talk me out of my decision. If I remembered him, hated him again, and the entire school knew about it, I'd never hear the end of it. Everyone would constantly be telling me how right they were, and that wouldn't help me at all. My head throbbed. Stressing myself out wasn't going to help. I knew what I was getting myself into, and I didn't need anyone reminding me about the consequences. "You okay, Kyle?"

"I'm fine. I just need some more sleep." Ike looked unconvinced. "I'm fine Ike. I'm just going to back to bed, okay?"

"Okay..." He left my room quickly. I let my head fall back on my pillow and fell asleep.

* * *

><p>"Kyle!" My dad was calling me this time. I looked at the clock again. Eleven-thirty. I groaned loudly into my pillow and tossed myself out of bed. I shuffled downstairs, following my dad's voice. I saw him sitting on the couch, watching the news or something.<p>

"Yes dad?" I asked unenthusiastically.

"Kenny and Stan are coming up the driveway. Could you get the door for them, son?" I muttered a few curses and dragged my feet toward the door. I opened the door, expecting them to already be there, but I was instead greeted by a burst of cold wind.

"Oh, fuck me!" I shouted. My dad either pretended he didn't hear my outburst, or he didn't care. Shivering, I stuck my head out the door to look for Kenny and Stan. They had stopped to talk, those bastards. I glared at them and yelled for them to hurry up and get inside. My toes curled as the cold air spread across the floor. I could already feel my ears freezing. Kenny and Stan rushed through the door. I slammed it behind them, then stood, waiting for them to say something. "Well? Why are you here?"

"Why don't we go to your room, Kyle?" Stan asked.

"I'll go where I want," I muttered, but I headed upstairs anyway. I missed my bed, and the lower floor was now too cold for me to tolerate. Once we got to my room, I flopped lifelessly back onto my bed. Kenny and Stan sat beside me as I shook myself awake. "Okay, what is it?" I asked bitterly once I had fully woken up.

"Wendy told us everything," Stan explained. "I'm sorry, dude. I wish she hadn't put you in this position." I laughed bitterly.

"Please, I know you guys want me to stop seeing Eric too."

"True," Kenny admitted. But we're not blackmailing you, and we're not doing it for us. We just don't want you to get too close before you start remembering everything he's done. There's no way in hell you'll like him after you get your memory back."

"Did you guys come here just to tell me that?" I snapped.

"No. We wanted to know if you wanted to hang out or something." I didn't feel like it, but why not? My life couldn't consist of just sleeping and balancing two relationships at once. I told the guys to wait for me downstairs while I took a shower and got dressed. When I was done, I went downstairs and quickly raided the fridge for a quick snack, then joined Kenny and Stan. I zipped up my coat as we stepped outside, still remembering the unwanted blast of cold from before. Kenny and Stan led me to a basketball court. Basketball didn't seem to interest me, so I watched them play for about fifteen minutes. Kenny accused Stan of cheating, and they started arguing, eventually leading to the two forfeiting out of frustration. I laughed as I watched their petty competition, amused. Afterwards, we decided to go to the mall. We had just enough money to get lunch from the food court. As we sat eating our food, Stan decided to bring up Red.

"So what are you gonna do on your date tonight?" he asked through a mouth full of fries. I grimaced, reminded of my upcoming plans with Red. I decided to answer anyway.

"We're going to Stark's Pond."

"And-?" Kenny asked eagerly, trying to get a further explanation.

"And that's it. She said she'd figure out what to do once we got there." Kenny and Stan looked at each other knowingly. "What?"

"Nothing," Kenny said, grinning. "Just promise you'll tell us about it tomorrow. In full detail."

"...Okay."

"I mean it Kyle. Don't be afraid to use _lots_ of imagery."

"You're such a perv, Kenny," Stan muttered, reaching for his soda. What did he mean by that? Why would I need to-

"Wait- you don't think she wants to..."

"Maybe," Stan admitted. You'll just have to find out later tonight."

"I don't wanna have sex with her! She's beautiful, but she's not my type."

"Are you gay?" Kenny asked bluntly. I was stunned. Not really because of Kenny's question, but because I had never really thought about that. All I knew was that I liked Eric, and not Red.

"...I guess so." We were all silent for a moment. I waited for my friends to get up and leave, but they just sat there.

"That explains _so_ much!" Kenny exclaimed. He and Stan burst into laughter.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Stan said between laughs. "Nothing." He straightened his face and became serious. "The point is, Kyle, that we don't have a problem with it." Kenny nodded in agreement.

"Really?" I asked. "Then why have you guys been giving me such a hard time over Eric?"

"Because he's _Eric _-er, Cartman!" Stan shouted, desperately trying to get his point across. "Honestly, Kyle, we think you're making a huge mistake. We're not trying to convert you or anything, but we do think that anyone would be better for you than Cartman."

"Thanks for the support guys, but I'm fine." I finished up my tater tots and got up to throw away my trash. I turned around to walk back to my table, when someone stopped me. A blonde guy.

"Hey Kyle!"

"Do I know you?"

"It's me, Butters! Eric wanted me to tell you somethin'. I thought I might catch you here-"

"I have no idea who you are!"

"A-are you feelin' alright, Kyle? It's me, Butters-from school...you told me at lunch that you remembered me."

Oh. Butters. I knew who he was. "Oh, hey Butters. Sorry about that, I guess this headache is just getting to me...Anyway, you said something about Eric?"

"...Yeah...he wanted to let you know that he's sorry about getting mad at you yesterday."

"He didn't have to apologize," I informed Butters. After the way things ended before the trouble with Ms. Cartman, I thought all was forgiven already.

"Well, he also said he doesn't mind if you went on the date either." Really? That didn't seem like Eric at all. After all the talking he'd done about not wanting to lose to Red, I thought he'd try harder. I think Butters could sense my surprise. "He said he doesn't want Red to get you in trouble with your mom, so you should just go on ahead and do it. He says Red's already lost anyway." True. There was no way I was going to let myself stay with Red. Eric was the one I wanted, and that was the way it was going to be after this awful date was over.

"Why didn't Eric just come and tell me this himself?"

"Oh." Butters obviously didn't expect me to ask. "Well, his mom got into some trouble last night, and he had to go help her..." I got it. I didn't know exactly what sort of trouble he meant, but after last night, I knew it couldn't have been anything small.

"Thanks Butters."

"You sure you're alright Kyle? You look tired."

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've just been really stressed over this whole Eric-Red thing." I rejoined Kenny and Stan at their table. To be honest, I didn't know what that was about. But I was pretty sure that stress had something to do with it, so I disregarded it for the time being. I spent the rest of the afternoon with Kenny and Stan, until about seven forty-five, and headed home to get ready for my...date. Red showed up almost exactly on time. Creepy. I told my parents I'd be back around nine thirty, and left. Red immediately started pouting.

"Nine thirty, Kyle? That doesn't give us a lot of time." That's what I was hoping. Red led me to Stark's Pond, about a ten minute walk. I hadn't noticed the blanket tucked under her arm. She spread it across the ground and sat down. She looked up at me, smiling sweetly, and patted the space next to her, asking me to join. Reluctantly, I sat myself next to her. Water from the snow seeped through the thin blanket. I angrily watched the water, waiting for the night to be over. I didn't even care that about the awkward silence I'd created. Red cleared her throat and decided to start a conversation. "Listen Kyle, like I said before, I really like you. In fact, I care about you a lot and-"

"If you care so much, then why don't you just accept the fact that I don't like you and let me be happy?" I spat. "For fuck's sake, Red, get a life and get off my back!" Tears filled Red's eyes as I completed my sentence. Goddamn, I was being an asshole. That wasn't me- I think. "Look Red, I don't hate you. But you can't use manipulation to get me to like you. In fact, you can't do anything to make me like you."

Red wiped her eyes. "So, you're gay then?" That word again. I knew what it meant, of course, but it was just weird hearing people say it.

"Yeah, it seems like it. So we can be friends, okay? But that's it."

"Friends?" Red asked hopefully, suddenly perking up. "That's great! I've always wanted a gay friend!" Oye.

"Well then, why don't we go do something fun?"

"Sure!" Red said enthusiastically. "I know this place with a really _awesome_ arcade! Why don't we go there?" I was expecting her to want to do some nighttime window shopping or something, but thankfully, this whole "gay friend" thing didn't involve me doing anything emasculating- so far. We left the blanket to soak in the snow and headed off towards the arcade. "Thanks for being so tough on me, Kyle," Red said. "I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life!" What did she mean by that? I wondered out loud. "Well," she paused, and looked away. Still, I could see that she was blushing. She looked back at me once her face went back to her normal color. "I was going to have sex with you to win you over, but thinking about it, I wouldn't want to lose my virginity on that damp blanket."

"Me neither," I agreed.

Red raised her eyebrows. "Are you...?"

"As far as I know," I answered. "According to my brother, I don't really have that much "action" going on."

Red laughed. "Oh my God! Seriously Kyle, thanks so much for telling me off. I told myself I'd have to do it to keep up with the hoards of girls that you must've been with," She started blushing again, "but I guess I had nothing to compete with- except Cartman. Hey, why do you like him anyway? I mean, sure, you've forgotten about him, but, he _must_ still be an ass, right?"

"Actually, he's been pretty awesome so far," I explained. "He's annoyed me a few times, but he also apologized for what he's done, and for the most part, he's not an ass." We arrived at the arcade. Red insisted to pay for the games. I tried Ms. PacMan first, but I sucked. I tried Super Mario brothers, but I sucked even worse.

"Man," Red laughed, "You suck. It's like you have no hand-eye coordination at all."

"Yeah, I know," I said, exasperated, watching the "Game Over" appear on the screen. "I was fine when I played video games at Kenny's house recently, and the games were way harder than this..."

"You don't think this could be a side-effect from the fall, do you?"

"I don't know." Red decided that it was better if I went home. She walked me home-just in case, she said-and told me tell my parents what had happed. I told her I would, said goodnight, and entered my house. Everyone was already asleep, so I figured I could wait until morning to tell my parents. I went off to bed before my mom woke up to see if I had made it home on time.

* * *

><p>My headache was much worse that morning. I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed until my mom came by, knocking furiously. Every time her fist hit the door, I could've sworn my brain was about to explode. I only managed to get out of bed to get her to stop. I tottered up to my door and told her that I was awake. "Hey Mom? I have something to tell you-"<p>

"It can wait until breakfast, Kyle. Now come on, get ready or you'll be late!" I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth. While brushing, I discovered a bottle of aspirin on the medicine shelf next to my head. I quickly emptied the contents into my hand. The bottle said to take two. I thought for a moment- four would be better. I swallowed them hastily and continued brushing my teeth. Once I was ready for breakfast, my headache was pretty much gone, so I decided it wasn't that important anymore.

"What did you want to tell me Kyle?" My mom asked, passing me my pancakes.

"It's nothing important, Mom."

"Oh come on, Bubby! I'm sorry I was rushing you this morning, but you know that doesn't mean I don't want to know what's going on with you."

"Trust me mom, I'm fine."

"Did I ever say you weren't fine? Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes, Mom, I'm feeling _fine_." Ike tapped me with his foot from under the table. _Are you sure?_ He mouthed. I nodded. My dad didn't seem to be stressing out about it, so what was up with everyone else? Imagine if I had told my mom. I'd never hear the end of it, and she'd be checking on me every second. After breakfast, I headed out to meet Kenny and Stan for school. They weren't there. I shrugged, and kept walking. Looking up the road, I saw someone waiting up ahead- Eric? It was him! I smiled as he waved at me.

"Morning," he said gruffly. He had bags under his eyes and he swayed to keep himself awake. Whatever happened with his mom must've been pretty bad. I don't think he got any sleep.

"Hey."

"How was your date with Red?"

"Oh it was great! We had sex at Stark's Pond and everything!"

"You did _what_?" I laughed at his jealousy.

"I'm _kidding_ Eric. You really need to lighten up."

"It's not funny," he grumbled. "For a second I thought I'd lost you." What? I watched Eric's face redden, which made me laugh harder.

"Aw," I teased. "How sweet of you."

"Shut up, Kyle." While we walked to school, I told him what really happened between me and Red. Of course, he rolled his eyes at the whole "gay friend" thing, as I'd expected him to. "You're not really going to be friends with her are you?" He shuddered. "She's just so-_girly_."

"We'll see what happens, I guess," I admitted. "Hey, speaking of which, what's going on with us anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are we...dating now?" Silence.

"I don't know. If that's what you want, then yeah, sure, I'm all for it." Eric's face was starting to resemble a beet. He looked more frustrated than embarrassed.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No. I'm just not used to doing all this faggy dating stuff. It's weird."

"Well, you're halfway there," I joked. "So far you've been pretty good about the gay part." Eric raised his eyebrows.

"I never thought about that," he said quietly. This revelation must have been as new to him as it was to me.

"Yeah, me neither. Kenny and Stan kind of just asked me about it." We both got lost in our thoughts, and spent the rest of the walk surrounded by silence.

* * *

><p>I couldn't focus in US history class. My teacher had been going on about World War II and it's affect on America, but my headache had gotten so bad, I could barely hold up my head. My fingers grasped loosely on my pen as I tried to take notes. Red sat at the desk behind me. She could tell that something was wrong, so she tapped me on the back to ask what the problem was.<p>

"Just a headache," I assured her, whispering.

"This looks bad, Kyle. What did your doctor say when you went to visit her?"

"What do you mean?"

"Kyle Broflovski, do _not_ tell me that you hit your head and the sidewalk and didn't go see your doctor!" Red whispered viciously. "This could be really serious!"

I sighed. "I know." I attempted to turn my head to face her, but the shooting pain intensified, and I redirected my gaze towards the board. "I tried to tell my mom this morning, but she just seemed so busy."

"That's no excuse. You need to tell your mom _today_, Kyle. If Eric cares about you so much, why hasn't he made you get checked out yet?"

"I haven't told him anything," I whispered. "He's usually around when I'm feeling better."

The rest of class went by so slowly, it was almost painful. Luckily, my headache went away halfway through class. Next up was lunch. The girls sat without us that day, so it was just Kenny, Stan, and I. They both accepted the fact that I was with Eric, and agreed that he could sit with us- as long as he brought Butters with him. Eric and Butters came over quickly once I had signaled them. Butters sat across from Stan and me, next to Kenny, and Eric sat next to me. He eyed Kenny and Stan quietly. You'd think they'd never met before. "Guys," he said, acknowledging their presence.

"Cartman," Stan replied, still seemingly suspicious of Eric enough to keep from using his last name.

Kenny nodded in Eric's direction. "Good to have you back, I guess," he muttered. Butters meshed his knuckles together nervously as an awkward silence covered the table. Luckily, Bebe walked by and winked at Kenny.

"I totally fucked her," he bragged, grinning like an idiot.

"Again, Kenny? Christ, you're going to catch something from her one of these days." Stan watched as Bebe bounded towards the girls' table, looking back at Kenny momentarily. He and Kenny started arguing about the pros and cons of being with Bebe, with Butters siding with Stan. Eric elbowed me lightly on the shoulder, catching my attention. He cocked his head towards the exit of the cafeteria, silently suggesting that we leave. I nodded, and followed him out into the hallway. Kenny and Stan were too busy to see us leave.

"Did you want to talk about something?" I asked once we reached the hallway. I was hoping there was more to it than that.

"Red told me you've been having headaches, Kyle- really bad headaches. You need to go see your doctor right after school." Was he worried about me? I could feel my face flush, amazed by how much Eric seemed to care about my well-being. "Do you think that when you got sick at my house, it had something to do with it? This could be serious."

"Don't worry, the headaches aren't that bad," I lied. "Besides, I was planning on asking my mom to take me to get checked out today, so don't worry." Eric sighed with relief.

"Alright then." He turned to head back in the cafeteria, but I wasn't ready to go back.

"Eric?"

He turned around to face me. "Yeah?"

I stepped closer to him, giving him the best suggestive look that I could. He looked shocked. "What?"

"Y-you're sick Kyle! We can't do that if you're sick."

"Oh, shut up Eric!" I snapped. "You've finally gotten what you wanted, so hurry up and take it!" Eric thought for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and charged forward, grabbing me by the arms and holding me in a deep, passionate, long anticipated kiss. My knees buckled as I felt Eric's warm tongue invade my mouth- teasingly brushing against the roof. That was new, but I liked it. Yet another moan escaped from my lips as Eric retracted, the vibration enabling his tongue to rub against mine as he did so. There was no way I was ready to stop this time. Eric gently grabbed my face and leaned forward for a second turn, but I placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Let's go to your house," I breathed, still shaken from the kiss.

"Back to my-" Eric's eyes widened. "Listen Kyle, you have no idea how much I want to tear your clothes off and fuck you 'till you bleed-" God, that sounded awesome- "But what if we do this, and you remember again? If you hate me again, this could end up being the biggest mistake of your life!"

"It's my decision," I stated promptly. "And I've decided that as long as I'm like this, I want to be happy- with _you_."

Eric smirked and rolled his eyes. "You can cut the sentimental crap now Kyle. Let's go." Eric and I rushed out of the school's exit doors and ran towards his house.

* * *

><p>Eric said his there was no way his mom was home, so this time we'd remain undisturbed. We didn't waste any time. Once Eric had gotten the necessary-items-from his mom's room (she was always prepared), we started immediately. I followed Eric into his room. Remembering how much he hated my hat, I quickly threw it to the ground as he slammed the door shut. He looked up at me, smiling when he saw that the hat had disappeared. Eric motioned towards his bed. I let myself collapse on it, lying vulnerably on my back, waiting from Eric to join me. He laid on his side next to me, propping up his head with his hand. Slowly, he unzipped my jacket and pulled it off of my body, letting it fall to the floor. He did the same with his own jacket. I let out a hiss as I felt Eric's cold hands run up my shirt, trailing the areas around my navel on up. Whispering something about-Imaginationland?-Eric pressed his lips against my neck. He allowed his teeth to graze my skin, and followed each bite with a tender kiss. I writhed a bit, surprised by the new sensations I was being introduced to. I assisted Eric as he slipped my shirt over my head. It also found its place on the ground. Eric lifted his leg to the other side of the bed so he could hover over me, resting in a straddle position over my lower body. He held my face in his hands and gazed dreamily into my eyes, as if he were savoring the moment for later. He softly kissed me on my lips. It was simple, containing no hint of lust or selfishness. "Remember that," Eric murmured. He stripped himself of his shirt and took yet another moment to look at me. "You sure you want do to this?" I had a choice. I could go ahead and do it, and face the possibility of hating myself for the rest of my life for it, or I could say I didn't want to, and walk away without worrying about what would happen if my memory ever came back, but at the same time, without ever trying to find happiness in something I knew made me feel, well, happy.<p>

"Yeah, I'm sure."

* * *

><p>Lunch had just ended by the time we'd gotten back. Kenny, Stan, and Butters had started freaking out once they realized we had gone missing, and got kind of pissed when we showed up and refused to give them an explanation for our absence. The rest of the school day went by, and I finally got to go home and tell my mom about my possible head injury. I met Kenny, Stan and Eric outside the school to walk home. Kenny and Stan told us to wait for them at the elementary bus stop- they had someone they needed to talk to. I was fine with that. Eric seemed unnerved though. Once we reached the bus stop, I could tell that something was really bothering him.<p>

"Eric? Is something wrong?" He remained silent for what seemed like an eternity. "Eric?"

"...I have something to tell you, Kyle."

"Sure, what is it?"

"You'll hate me when I tell you."

"No I won't. Why would I-"

"Believe me, Kyle, you'll hate me."

Like the fool I was, I gave Eric an encouraging smile. "I'm sure it's not that bad." In reality, my heart was racing. I thought maybe he wanted to break up, or that he had an STD or something, but _nothing_ could have prepared me for what he was going to tell me.

"I knew you were going to fall on that ice. I'd planned it from the very beginning." I could feel my heart stop. My blood ran cold as the words left his mouth. I backed away from Cartman, wide-eyed and probably hyperventilating.

"What-why? Why would you-" My body began to sway. Colors blended together as my brain tried to process the situation I was in. Feelings of panic, anger, confusion, and horror washed over me as I stared at someone who I thought I could trust out of all people.

"I just wanted you to forget me Kyle. That's all..."

"Kenny...Stan. I need to find them," I muttered. "I need to find them before you try to kill me you _sick freak!_" Appalled, Cartman took a large step away from me. Though his face displayed feelings of hurt and shame, I grew less and less sympathetic with every second I laid my eyes on it. Suddenly, the pain in my head returned, much worse than before. I cried in sheer agony as each throb in my head sent a ripping feeling through my brain. I collapsed to the ground, the pain more intense than ever. Cartman began screaming my name, but I ignored him, thrashing about on the ground as each new feeling of pain presented itself. I heard feet running towards me, and heard the familiar voices of Kenny and Stan, yelling at Cartman to call someone. The pain in my head was all I could concentrate on, and it caused me to black out.

_I'm pretty sure the __**next **__chapter will be the last. I hope you guys got the whole __**Imaginationland**__ reference (gives you an idea of just a few things that Cartman had in mind for he and Kyle, hehe...), or else that would've really killed the mood. How'd I do? I tried making the last line relate to the first line of the first chapter for some weird "artsy" reason or something. I hope you'll stick around for the next chapter. It's from __**Cartman's POV**__. _


	7. Chaos

_Dang, I took a long time finishing this one. Forgive me! 5/11/12 __**Little update: I took out a footnote I made- I think the ending should be read…IMO ;P Other than that, no other changes were made**_

_**Important: Please remember that this is **_**Cartman's**_** POV, so the dialogue might be pretty offensive/crude- these are not my thoughts/opinions at all, I'm just writing them!**__ But anyway, thanks so much for reading, and I'm so sorry for holding out for so long. Junior year is way harder than I thought I'd be! Next up, finals and _then_ another story ^_^ Again, thanks :)_

Chapter 7: Chaos

**Cartman's POV:**

Fuck! This wasn't what I had planned. I let my feelings get in the way, and it only made things worse. While I watched as the EMTs hauled Kyle into the back of the ambulance, I felt something gnawing at me that I had never felt before: guilt. Kenny and Stan were both freaking out, telling the very unresponsive Kyle that they would meet him later at the hospital. Stan turned to face me.

"Cartman, what happened?" he asked frantically. I didn't know what to say. It wasn't that hard: all I had to do was tell them that a blood vessel had burst in Kyle's head or something, but I felt like the guys would know what I did if I told them. Instead, I stared at the ambulance as it sped off, and pretended not to hear Stan.

"It was probably his head," Kenny answered for me. "We need to go tell his parents what happened." He and Stan immediately started running for Kyle's house. I tried to follow them, but my feet felt like they were tied to cinderblocks. "Cartman, come _on_!" Slowly, I picked up my feet and began walking. Walking soon turned into jogging, and before I knew it, I was sprinting with Kenny and Stan. We reached Kyle's house in no time. Kenny and Stan raced up to the door, but I decided to stay behind and watch from the sidewalk. Ike answered the door. Stan frantically explained what happened, and told Ike to take him to his parents. Almost moments later, Kyle's mom came charging through the door with Kyle's dad right behind her. Ike hurried behind them. Mrs. Broflovski kept screaming about her "poor baby." I didn't know what to do, so I decided to just go home. I _knew_ that I should've gone to the hospital, and I _knew_ I should've been there to apologize to Kyle when- if he got through the surgery, and I needed to make sure that he was okay- this was my fault after all. But that was the problem. Usually, watching people suffer was the most entertaining thing in the world, _especially_ when I was the one who caused the suffering. This time it was different. I just felt like a complete ass for everything I'd done.

My original plan didn't have this as an outcome, obviously. I was never supposed to have any feelings towards Kyle at all. As planned, he slipped on the ice and lost his memory. As planned, I was supposed to gain his trust. Things changed after I made that fucking apology. All I was supposed to do was apologize, become friends with him, and if everything went as planned, I'd fuck him, wait for his memory to come back, and watch him hate himself for the rest of his life for sleeping with the enemy. In a way, I guess my plan did work, but in the end, I didn't want it to. After apologizing to him- and I must admit, my acting was great, I felt liberated. At that very moment, I didn't want to carry out the plan anymore. I realized that Kyle was actually a nice, compassionate guy. Not knowing what to do, I just left him downstairs. I spent the rest of the night contemplating my new realization. I'll admit, ever since I hit puberty, I've liked Kyle in a hit it and quit it sort of way, but that never made me treat him any better. He just seemed like a whiny know-it-all, and I definitely didn't "like" him at all, until I realized he wouldn't blindly follow his friends when they told him how to think.

So I had two options: I could either carry out my plan despite the fact I didn't want to anymore, or I could forget all about my plan and try to win Kyle over for real. I made the wrong choice. I should've just forgotten about my stupid feelings and carried things out without all the emotions getting in the way.

Once I got to my house, I shut myself in my room and didn't come out for the rest of the day. I could barely finish my homework- it didn't help that I'm horrible at school. After that I just...went to bed.

* * *

><p>Kyle was gone from school for three weeks. I was glad he was okay, but I was also terrified of what would happen when he came back. I avoided the guys the whole time. Sometimes I heard people in the hall talking about Kyle, but I decided it was none of my business. During the middle of English class, he finally returned. The whole class, including the teacher became silent as he shuffled into the classroom.<p>

"Nice to have you back Mr. Broflovski," Mrs. Patterson said, greeting Kyle flatly. She turned around and started writing the class assignments on the board. I glanced at Kyle quickly to see if he had changed. His hat rested much lower on his head than before, hiding his eyebrows and almost covering his eyes. I then realized that if he had brain surgery, it meant that he'd have to have shaved his head first. If I had still been my old self, I would've gotten up, snatched his hat off of his head, and made him reveal his shaven top to the entire class, laughing while he tried to find a way to cover it up. Now I just grimaced over the fact that Kyle's beautiful curls were gone, and that it was my fault. Kyle sat in the front of the room, back at his actual seat, and not the one I told him he sat at. The one next to me. This was a very bad sign. Kyle didn't say much. He answered a few questions every now and then, but other than that, he just sat hunched over his desk. I waited for him to look back at me, but he never turned around once in class. I would've even taken a scowl or an angry finger pointed straight at me, but it never came. After class ended, Kyle hurried out before I could say anything to him.

I didn't sit with the guys during lunch. Butters had gone to sit with them to make sure Kyle was okay, so I was alone. I saw Kenny look over at me a few times, and then back at Kyle. He asked Kyle a question, but he just shook his head sadly and drowned his tater-tots in gravy. I wanted so badly to go over and apologize, but two things were stopping me: one was that I had done a horrible thing and I actually felt bad- _I_ felt bad about doing it, and I was afraid of apologizing because I actually cared whether or not Kyle hated me. The second reason was the lack of hatred projected towards me by _other_ people. Kyle probably didn't tell anyone about what I had done. Otherwise, everyone in town would be after me. If I apologized and made Kyle angrier, he could tell everyone and I'd probably be run out of town. I didn't know what to do. There had to be a reason why he didn't tell everybody about what I did- a good reason. He could have me exiled from South Park for the rest of my life, or at least arrested, but he didn't tell anyone.

I looked up from my lunch tray as I heard someone walk timidly up to my table. It was Red. I watched with disinterest as she approached me. She stood at the other end of the table and gave me this weird look. My blood froze. Did she know? Did Kyle tell her what happened?

"Cartman...Eric...you and Kyle need to fix whatever it is that's wrong with you two!" She demanded. She'd actually called me by my first name, the bitch. I still didn't like her and she was overstepping boundaries just by standing next to me. "Ever since his memory's come back, he hasn't been the same, and I think it's because he still likes you." His memory had come back? Great. That meant that not only did he hate me for what I'd done to him recently, but he also hated me for all the other reasons he'd hated me in the first place. And what was this about him still liking me? Bullshit. He wasn't the same because I'd ruined his life. Red could tell I didn't believe her. "Come _on_ Eric, please! He might be mad because of what you did to him, but the past is the past, right? I'm sure once you explain to him that you're a different person now, he'll understand."

"Fuck off Red," I spat. "I don't care about that damn Jew anymore, so leave me the fuck alone." Red's friendly smile quickly turned into a look of disgust. She left without another word, but not before spitting on the tater tots on my lunch tray. "I was gonna eat those!" I yelled after her. But whatever. There was no use making friends now. My main objective was to get close enough to Kyle to be able to talk to him- alone. I could've just sent Kyle a really long text apologizing for what I'd done, but I knew he'd never accept that. I decided to confront him face-to-face.

After school, I went over to his house, ready to see his reaction. I rang on the doorbell and waited for a pretty long time. Finally, Kyle's younger brother...the Canadian kid...Ike! Yeah, Ike, answered the door. When he saw me, he stepped back a bit, but he kept his face straight.

"Kyle is sleeping right now, but you can wait until he wakes up." Kyle hadn't told Ike what happened either. Good. Maybe he was willing to talk things out. Ike directed me to the living room couch. We watched TV for a while, but the whole time, I could feel Ike's eyes on me. It was really unsettling.

"What do you want?" I snapped. Though he flinched when I yelled, Ike smirked when he saw how uncomfortable I was.

"Why are you here?"

"To see Kyle, obviously," I groaned. "Isn't it obvious?"

"But _why_ do you want to see him?" This kid was getting on my nerves. I tried to ignore him, but he kept _staring_ at me.

"...Because, I have to apologize for some stuff I did. I heard Kyle got his memory back, and I'm sure he hates me right now." Well, that was the half-truth.

"Oh." Ike and I looked upward as we heard someone walking around upstairs. "I think that's Kyle. I'll go get him if you want."

"I can get him myself." Ike was such a twat. I knew he just wanted to find out what would happen if he told Kyle that I was downstairs. I hurried upstairs before Ike could say some retarded shit about me disrespecting him. Kyle's door was closed, so I knocked softly on the door, incase Kyle was still having headaches. Being considerate of his condition- that felt completely unnatural, and I didn't like the feeling, but this involved Kyle, so I decided to make an exception.

"Go away Ike," Kyle answered sleepily.

"It's Eric," I reported. "Cartman."

There was a pretty long pause after that. I listened as Kyle slowly rose from his bed and headed towards his door. I smile spread across my face. I knew he couldn't resist me. He hesitantly opened the door, revealing a bit of his now cluttered room. Bags had collected under his eyes, and his face was a bit thinner than the last time I saw him. His head was covered in red fuzz. His hair was growing back- good. I couldn't wait to take a hold of his auburn curls again. Unfortunately, he scowled when he saw me at the door, and slammed the door in my face.

"Fuck off Cartman!" He yelled. Alright then. I hoped that little shit was happy with himself, locked up like some coward. I was going to yell something back- probably something about his mom being a fat whore, but in my mind, I didn't want to make things worse because I felt like there was still a chance that I could fix things. I quickly left so I could get back home and think of what exactly it was I wanted to do.

* * *

><p>It made me sick. Watching Red shamelessly flirt with Kyle was actually making me physically ill. Every time she would try to touch him, he'd flinch or move away quickly, but for some reason she tried. I guessed she thought that since Kyle's memory had come back, he'd be "straight" again. How fucking convenient would that be for her in her shitty little world. The truth was that Kyle had never had any interest in Red, or probably any girl for that matter.<p>

I started to notice it sometime after the end of freshman year. Kyle would always be a little _too_ friendly with Kenny and Stan to the point that it made them uncomfortable. I mean, I'd seen them play around, the fags, acting like they were into each other- and never including me- as a joke, but Kyle seemed to take it too far at times. Once he even ran his hand up Stan's shirt, while Wendy was watching. Naturally, I laughed while Kyle had to explain to Wendy _and_ Stan that it was just a joke. During the summer, I guess I got kind of taller and thinned out a bit. I was ready to fix the problem with an extra helping of Cheesy Poofs sometime that weekend until I noticed Kyle had been staring at me. Sure, he always used to stare at me, but at times it wasn't with the same look of hatred and resentment. He looked- interested. And that interested me. I decided to keep losing weight to see what would happen, and of course, he kept looking. The thinner I got, the more he would stare, but he was so stubborn, there was no way he was going to admit it. It was a challenge. A challenge that I found really hot. Getting Kyle to give me his virginity was my motivation since, like I said before, I liked him in a fucking sort of way for a pretty long time. I didn't know how to do it without looking like a desperate fag, so I just came up with my plan.

I was so disgusted by Red's desperation that I didn't see Kenny and Stan walking towards my table. They had to sit down for me to realize that they were there. "Cartman!" Stan called sharply. "What are you doing? Ever since Kyle's accident you've been avoiding him. Just because he was brain damaged doesn't mean that you can just stop talking to him."

"Yeah," Kenny encouraged. "And that was a real dick move you pulled, running off when we were going to tell Kyle's parents what had happened. What's your problem?"

These two. First, they didn't want Kyle around me at all, and know they were pushing for it? I decided to ignore them.

"Cartman, seriously," Stan urged. Kyle's been acting differently lately. I could understand him being pissed at you for what you did," I cringed, thinking that he had somehow found out about what had really happened, "but it's all in the past now. Most of the really fucked up shit you did was way back in elementary school."

"Did something happen between you guys before we got to the bus stop?" Kenny asked. Prodding little shit.

"_No_. Can you guys just - _fuck off_?" I demanded, exasperated. They still sat, waiting for answers, so I tried to think of what to say to get them to leave. "I didn't feel like dealing with Kyle's shit anymore, so I just left. It's that simple, so just forget about it." Kenny and Stan actually looked surprised that I was being so...what's the word? Oh, unsympathetic. Pfft, sympathy is for the weak. "He's not depressed or anything is he?" Damn. Why was I so concerned about him anyway? The fact that I had asked about him was definitely going to make me seem like I still cared- not that I didn't- but I didn't...I think.

"That's the problem; we don't even know, Stan explained. "If you're so concerned, why don't you try talking to him yourself? Get up and say something to him fatass." Kenny and Stan got up and started walking to their table. Two things: I was _not _fat anymore, and there was no way I was going to allow Stan to get away with insulting me, especially while using his condescending tone.

"First off," I told Stan, raising my voice so he could hear before he walked off, "the only part of my body that's still fat is my cock, and I was just checking to make sure Kyle was missing it." Both Kenny and Stan shook their heads disapprovingly, which pissed me off even more. "Besides," I continued, "he's damaged goods- I don't want to fuck around with some brain-damaged retard anyway!" It was then that I realized how loud my voice had gotten. Kenny and Stan noticed too, and quickly looked over towards their table to see if Kyle had heard. He looked the same as before- emotionless. I felt a knot form in my stomach. I hadn't meant what I said! I was just trying to piss of Stan for being a total asshole, but I might have also hurt my chances with Kyle at the same time.

Kenny and Stan just looked disgusted as they walked back to their seats.

* * *

><p>All I could think about for the rest of the day was Kyle. Had he heard me? Did Kenny or Stan tell him? Had he been considering talking to me again until I had said that? Would it cause him to tell everyone about what I'd done? I sat on my bed after school with these thoughts running through my head. I decided that if I couldn't talk to Kyle in person, I'd just have to call him. I'd forgotten to give him my number, so there was a chance that he would answer. I had to look up his number on Facebook first, then dialed quickly before I changed my mind.<p>

Kyle picked up after four rings. "Hello?" he answered sluggishly. He sounded like he had been sleeping, but it was only 3:43 pm. Was that a sign of depression?

"Kyle, it's me- Cartman. Listen, I just wanted to talk about what happened-" The phone immediately hung up before I could even finish my sentence. I let out a frustrated groan and prepared to throw my phone, until I remembered I could also text Kyle. Maybe he would hear what I had to say if he didn't have to hear me say it. "Eric, you're a genius," I muttered to myself. "Yes, yes, you're too kind," I said, thanking...myself. Ever since I'd gotten rid of my dolls, I had that problem of talking to myself. I tried to think of something convincing to write.

I tried something short at first to catch his attention. Maybe he'd see it and call me back:

**Kyle, Im snding this txt bcz u wnt tlk 2 me in prsn- plz reply, I want to say sry **

What the fuck was I, some illiterate fifth grader? Just because it was a text message didn't mean I had to half-ass it.

**Kyle, I'm sending you a crappy text message because you won't let me talk to you in person or over the phone- I want to apologize, so please respond**

Not bad. I sent the message and waited a few seconds; the phone was bound to ring any moment. After a minute had passed, I went downstairs for a Cheesy Poofs break, eating them quickly so that I wouldn't miss a call, but when I returned upstairs, there was still no response of any kind. Minutes turned to hours, and even after I had finished my homework, Kyle was still unresponsive. I watched _two_ episodes of Terrance and Phillip, and even then Kyle didn't reply. I thought about calling again, but what would that do? He'd just hang up again.

I couldn't sleep that night. My eyes were closed, but it wasn't helping. I just kept wondering why I was so hung up on this Jew- I meant Kyle- no! If he wasn't going to accept my apology, then he was nothing but a dirty Jew. My eyes shot open. The thought of Kyle hearing my insults entered my head again. I didn't think he was a dirty Jew...I guess Judaism wasn't so bad anyway...or at all. But I was so used to insulting him, and it didn't make it any easier to quit now that he was purposefully ignoring me. Asshole. I just wanted things to back to the way they were. But no matter what, I still had done something horrible to Kyle, I'd still fucked up everything by telling the truth, I'd still fucked him _before_ telling the truth, and now, there was a possibility he'd heard me call him a brain dead retard, so no, there was no way things were going to go back to normal. The worst part was that that's what scared me the most.

* * *

><p>When I woke myself up that morning, I knew that there was only one thing on my mind: straightening things out with Kyle. This time, I was going to make him listen to me. That morning, I waited for him before classes. I saw him, but he was walking towards the doors with Kenny, Stan, and even Butters. I'm <em>not<em> a pussy- I'm not, but the closer they came, the faster I headed into the building. If I confronted Kyle in front of everyone he could've gotten mad and told everyone about what happened. I decided to wait until after school to talk to Kyle. The thing was I had no idea what I was going to do if I ever did get him to talk to me. Was I just supposed to apologize? That wasn't enough. Then again, I'd never apologized for something and meant it, so maybe it was enough. Once I had reached English class, I had changed my mind and decided to talk to Kyle then and there. He was sitting at his desk talking to Token when I saw him. I hurried up to his desk before the class bell rang. I had to get him to listen to me, even if it was only for ten seconds. I shoved Token out of his seat and sat down at his desk while Kyle wasn't looking. When he saw that I had replaced Token, he quickly got up from his seat to move.

"Kyle, wait!" I called after him in a loud whisper. He stopped momentarily, but he didn't turn around to look at me. "I want to talk to you after school. Is that okay?" I couldn't believe I was asking him for permission to do something. He really had a hold on me, and he wasn't even trying. Of course, he didn't answer, so I kept on talking. "Just wait for me after French. I'm trying to apologize here!" Token had lifted himself off of the floor and was now staring down at me, clearly angry. The last thing I wanted was to get in a fight with some big hulking black guy. I would get suspended for kicking his ass and committing a hate crime-again. I quietly left Token's seat and made my way to my real seat in the back.

* * *

><p>French class was almost over, and I was about to have a heart attack. Kyle had already packed up his backpack, a sign that he was getting ready to leave quickly. My teacher kept saying some shit about past tense verbs and studying for some sort of test, but I wasn't listening. I kept my eyes on Kyle as he stared longingly at the door. I was so distracted that I didn't realize the bell had rung until Kyle got up to leave. Panicked, I shoved everything on my desk into my backpack and ran out of the room. Once I was in the hallway, I looked around frantically, trying to determine which direction Kyle had walked in. To my surprise, he was waiting by the door, his face stern and impatient. I started to say something, but he held up his hand to stop me. I waited for him to say something, anything, but he just stood watching me. Slowly, the hallway emptied and our French teacher left for the day. Finally, Kyle spoke. "Explain yourself," he demanded. He sounded more bored than angry, so I had to make this good before he lost interest.<p>

"Kyle," I began. "I'm so sorry that-"

"I don't care about apologies, Cartman," Kyle interrupted. "I want to know why you did what you did."

Shit. I knew I had to tell him everything or else it would just make things worse if he found out later. It was actually making me pretty upset, having to explain myself. "Well Kyle, for the longest time I thought you were pretty damn fuckable," I started harshly. Already I could see that Kyle thought I was a waste of time. "I thought you were hot," I said hurriedly. "But I didn't _like_ you. I- actually didn't until after I apologized for being an ass, and even that was fake," I admitted. Kyle's facial expression didn't change, but his body tensed up a bit. I guess he wasn't too surprised, but it probably still hurt him to know. "Even when Kenny and Stan told you not to hang out with me, you kept ignoring them. I thought you'd remember me soon after they told you I about me the first time, so I didn't really mean what I said when I apologized, but after you refused to believe them the second and third time, I felt like apologizing sincerely, but I didn't because it would seem suspicious." Kyle remained unmoved.

"That doesn't explain why you intentionally let me lose my memory," Kyle said, deadpanned.

"After I started losing weight, I could tell that you were starting to- find me...attractive," I explained, feeling embarrassed, because there was a chance that I could have been wrong. Kyle blushed slightly, and for a moment, his expression softened to a look of mutual embarrassment.

"So what?" he questioned.

I was right then. Good. "I wanted to ask you if you ever wanted to- do it, but I didn't want to be rejected by you of all people- sorry about that- but I really wanted to hook up, and I thought the only thing that was standing in the way was your memories of me. So I looked up amnesia on the internet and..." Kyle's look had changed from apathetic to furious in a matter of seconds. "...and all I needed was to inflict some sort of head trauma. I didn't want to actually hit you or anything, so I decided to create some of my own black ice. I knew we were going to see the new Terrance and Phillip movie, so I created random patches of black ice on the sidewalk from my house to the movie theater. Knowing that out of Kenny, Stan, and I that you're the most likely to get sick or hurt, I was pretty sure they'd be fine, which was good because I would've been under question if you all got hurt and I didn't." Kyle looked like he couldn't believe what I was saying. Even though I knew it was bad to admit it, I thought it was a pretty good plan; very intricate. "I put small rocks to the side of the patches I'd made. You guys came by my house to get me to pay for your movie tickets, and as I'm sure you can remember by now, I took my sweet time getting outside so that we only had three minutes to get to the movies, but I told you guys that you should've picked me up earlier, just to annoy you. I also encouraged you guys to run the rest of the way, and then, as planned, you fell. I didn't think you'd fall so hard, or lose your memory for as long as you did." I sighed heavily, for some reason feeling better for admitting what I'd done. I'd admitted things in the past, but it always made me feel dignified, not relieved.

"Is that it?" Kyle looked incredibly annoyed at me, but almost like he was going to eventually forgive me in the very distant future. But that wasn't it and I knew it. I had to tell him everything and hope that he wouldn't take it too personally.

"No," I admitted. Kyle looked a bit disappointed, like he wanted that to have been all so that he could just hurry up and forget about the whole ordeal. "This is going to sound bad, but, I wanted to mess with you, so I- I thought I'd be funny to see what would happen if you had sex with me." Idiot. I could have worded that so much better.

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked sharply. I think I had hit a nerve there. After all, I did kind of steal his virginity, and now he hated me.

"I thought it would be amusing to see how you would react if I gained your trust, had sex with you, and then..."

"And then what?" Kyle persisted. I really wished he would just forget about it.

"You were a virgin before, right?" I asked, making sure. Kyle nodded hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to know where this was going. I wanted to see how miserable you'd be if you knew you'd lost your virginity to me. I wanted to see you suffer." Kyle's eyes were filled with a look of pure rage and fear. His breathing quickened and any hint of compassion had left him. "That's not why I had sex with you though!" I explained quickly. By then I actually cared about you. I-" I never got to finish explaining myself.

"Cartman, you _fucking cunt_!" Kyle yelled, his voice echoing through the hall. "I don't give a shit how you felt about me at the time. It doesn't make you any less of a sick bastard!" Kyle's shoulders rose and fell dramatically as he breathed deeply, full of anger and adrenalin. "Do you have _any_ idea at all what you've done? Do you even _care_? If you really gave two shits about me, once you started caring, you should have waited until after I got my memory back before we did anything at all! You should have pushed for me to go to the hospital instead of just letting me wander around in ignorance. In fact, I wish it was back to how it was when I just tolerated being around you, but now I can't even stand to look at you." Kyle began to calm down a bit, but when I opened my mouth to respond, he started ranting again. "For a second- for _one fucking second_ I was considering forgiving you. I- I actually really,_ really_ liked you. Fuck, if we had been together long enough I might've actually loved you." He laughed bitterly at the thought. "But when I woke up in the hospital after surgery, all the memories came flooding back. I hated myself for being so stupid, for not listening to my friends, for actually sleeping with your disgusting self. I didn't start to feel depressed until I remembered the last thing you told me before I hemorrhaged: that you'd intentionally caused me to lose my memory _and_ hurt me in the process." Kyle paused for what felt like an eternity. I tried to say something, but I was all out of words. What _could I say_? Nothing was going to make this better. "I liked you because you apologized, and that's also the reason I trusted you. You're nothing but shit, Eric Cartman, and I hope you regret this for your entire life, but I don't think you really have a conscience, do you?"

Kyle straightened his backpack straps and turned to leave. I wanted to call him back, to tell him that I never meant for any of this to happen, that it was all my fault, but all I could manage was to say his name. "Kyle-" I called hoarsely.

"By the way, Cartman, I may be a brain dead retard, but I'm not stupid enough to take anything you say seriously anymore. I'm done talking to you. I mean it. If you try talking to me, calling me, texting me, or even sending me a fucking letter, I will tell _everyone_ about what you did, so _fuck off_.

I had no choice. I kept my mouth shut and watched as Kyle quickly left the building. I still wondered why he never told anyone to begin with, but I would never find out.

I was alone in the hallway. Alone in all aspects. Nobody I knew liked me, and the only ones who could tolerate me were the guys, and they were off limits now. To make matters worse Kyle had heard what I'd said. I never got to apologize to him or explain that I'd never meant to say anything like that. That was the last conversation I ever had with Kyle Broflovski. And he was wrong. I did regret what I'd done. The first time I'd ever become anything close to a human being ended up being my last. Other than the gnawing guilt I felt, there was no other emotion within me. I was done trying to make myself happy with honesty. I didn't know what was going to come next, but whatever it was, I was going to handle it with less mercy and feeling than ever before. Fuck humanity.

**The End.**


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